Category Archives: Austria

Today is our last day in Vienna! We took the beginning of the morning to rest up and pack up. We the went off to meet with Sarah! She took us around the first district. I can also proudly day that I had Manner Wafer. They literally have any flavour you could imagine and all possibilities of merchandise; that’s right from bikinis to even baby onsies! We went inside the St Stephan Church which we somehow managed to miss when we went sightseeing before. What was really interesting is that placed in the outside church wall were metal measurements. Apparently these were used back in the day so peasants could measure goods and not be cheated by the merchants. One was to to measure the length of fabric, and size of bread. If a merchant was found guilty of ripping off a customer they were caged and dunked into the river! We then went through the high end shopping district working our way to the Jewish Quarter!? In the open square there was a monument shaped as a book store in remembrance of the books burned and Jewish whole were killed during the Nazi regime. We then went inside an office to see the coolest elevator I have ever seen! It was an old wooden one where you had to jump into it to get inside. When we rode it down to the bottom the axis rotated it to go back up, I have never seen anything like it before! Afterwards we walked to one of the summer palaces known as the Hofburg Palace. Apparently the royal family felt too isolated from the city in their primary castle and as a result they built this one, which is now used as the Parliament headquarters. We made our way to an ice team store to have a cone and then say our goodbyes.

Andrea and I then went off to meet Charlotte at the Belvedere. The royal family must have loved having castles, as the art gallery was a former palace. Now I I’ll admit I don’t know much to anything about art yet it still astonishes me how talented artists are. It’s now a surprise to anyone that I can’t even draw stick men :) Another interesting thing about the Belvedere was that they had a sketch of what the room looked like and what’s its purpose was when the royal family inhabited it. Exuberance can’t explain how they must have lived. For example, they had a marble cabinet room, a two story chapel and a minimum of three drawing rooms. Afterwards we then explored the gardens and then made our way to meet Chris for coffee. Well I had Apple strudel, and it was delicious :) Chris was one of Andreas grade seven classmates, a fellow UBC student and just happened to be in exchange in Vienna: such a small world! We then headed back to Charlottes to make a quick dinner and headed off to the train station to go to Venice.Hopefully third time is the charm with our overnight trains, especially since this is our last overnight train during our trip!

Today is Andreas and I’s 50th day anniversary. Or in other words we are halfway done our trip and still haven’t left one another yet, so I say its going well :)

We are off to Salzburg for day and much to our surprise the train had wifi! Now this is so rare its lie spotting a four leaf clover in a meadow. We came to the rational conclusion that this was especially for our anniversary. Lets just say that it was the most enjoyable train ride yet!

Once we got into Salzburg Andrea noticed that is was recycling day there and grabbed a piece of cardboard and headed off to find a hill to slide down. Now she says that she used to do this back at home and that it worked but I was skeptical. We did find a hill and she tried to slide down the hill but she wasn’t able to go! People sitting in the benches began to laugh as did I. She ended up log rolling down hill instead. After the fun was over we went to the Mirabell Palace and Gardens. Which I had just learned the night before was where the Sound of Music was filmed. Then intricate patterns of the flowers in the garden beds was so pretty. When we got closer to the flowers I realized that the designs where with rocks as well, which I wasn’t able to see form above. To walk further into the town we crossed the river where we finally saw some mountains! In Europe people often refer to mountains as what I consider hills back at home. Andreas classification that if you can drive up to then top than it isn’t a mountain, which is not certainly that case here. Crossing the bridge lead us to be bombarded with Mozart everything, and I literally mean everything! Whatever you could place Mozart on there was a Mozart store that has it! We then passed by the birth place of Mozart where the street level has been converted to a very high end bar! We also went to the Salzburg Dom, Nonnberg Convent, and St. Peter’s Abbey. Inside the Abbey there was like an open courtyard with tombstones in the middle and along the covered sides there were extremely elaborate graves. Some had wall high paintings, statues and fences barricading them! After eating lunch in the University of Salzburg’s courtyard we walked past some students sketching scenery; oh how I wish I could draw! With some newfound energy we descend up the hill to go to the Salzburg Fortress. It was insanely steep but the view was so rewarding! We made sure to take it all in before we had to go back down again. Going down was even more dangerous! This should have been the time for Andrea to try out her cardboard sled! We made it down in tact and then roamed through the streets once more stepping inside cute local shops before heading back to Vienna. Once we got back to Charlottes we realized that we need to slow down since we’ve been keeping busy the past few days!

Andrea shall finally be able to ride a bike today! She has been yearning to ever since she used Fabians back in Erlangen. Vienna has a well developed bike share program all around the city, just like Vancouver has Car2go. So we made our way over to the closest bike station near the Danube-Auen National Park. We read online that we could register to rent a bike for only one euro and that the first hour with the bikes was free! Yet, when we tried to register at that station it wasted to charge us twenty euros each just to registers. We couldn’t figure out why and assume it could be because we have international credit cards. I just saw it as a sign that we shouldn’t shouldn’t go biking and Andrea didn’t seem so impressed with my theory ;)

We then made our way back to the city centre and went on a tour of the Vienna State Opera. Now our tour guide was completely disinterested and clearly didn’t like his job, but I was able to prod and find out some super interesting things. First of all the building is jaw dropping! The detailed ceilings covered with gold and statues all along the sides were throughout the whole building. The Opera also had different waiting rooms for each intermission and also private reception rooms that people could purchase along with their ticket. For if course a small fortune, but this was where the nobles and royalty watched the Operas. Also the only performances that are permitted to this day are only ballets and operas. What also makes the Vienna State Opera unique from any other opera house in the world is that they have a different opera every night! So yes that means that all the performers must know a set of operas and be able to rotate between them flawlessly. It also means that the stage crew has to take down and set up the sets every single day for the different performances. There are three different stage crew shifts that operate 24 hours per day. Now I find this a waste of time and resources, but they Opera has always functioned this way and seems that it will only continue to in the future.

Afterwards we walked the Vienna Ring Road a five kilometre walk in the city where most of the tourist attractions are. We then walked to the Museumsquartier and walked around the beautiful buildings where the the majority if the city’s museums are. We peaked inside the Naturhistorisches Museum and the inside looked like a palace rather than a museum! We then made our way back to Charlottes to have some dinner and meet up before we went to the ballet.

With Andrea, Charlotte, Christina, Joanna and I in tow we went over to the Volksopera to watch Carmina Burana. We were able to get standing spots for just three euros each! I was able to see the whole stage and every the whole orchestra too! Now if I was to life in Vienna you would bet that I would be at a different show every night. I suppose that what makes Vienna a city of performing arts and culture! Now the performance started off as as interpretive dancing worked its way to modern and contemporary ballet for the first act. Now the second act is where things turned around there was some classical ballet but then it turned into an opera and modern stage! Since there was no program available none of us knew what was happening at least plot wise but it was so captivating! For just going to one show here in Vienna I am glad it was this one because it literally had every variation of the performing arts! At the end if the show assumed that it was a performing arts school years recital but after the show I looked online and found out that the Volksopera is that it is all compromised of aspiring performers from the ages of 12-18. As a sort of an upper level community program, despite this they were amazing and was defiantly a show I will never forget!

We started off the day by heading out to Schönbrunn Palace, the formal summer residence of the royal family. Now it was huge! I’ve seen photos of the castle, but it was nothing like I expected in person! Just more exquisite and grand. The palace wrapped around the whole lot, that there was no way I was able to capture it all in a photo no matter how far away from it I stood. Eventhough we didn’t go inside when we walked up to the exterior staircase we could peek inside to see and see the gorgeous ceilings and furniture inside. We walked through the perfectly maintained gardens and headed to the fountain. What I thought know as interesting is that the fountain had statues of the Greek Gods and depicted them each it a pose that demonstrated their attributes. We continued our way up and walked up to take in the view. And also we were able to seek shelter from that rain that decided to make another appearance…After the rain stopped we walked through the forest in our way down and I realized how little actually green space similar to what I consider a forest, aside from Hamburg, during my time here. The palace grounds even have a botanical gardens and the oldest zoo in Europe. We managed to peak into the cages and spotted a fellow Canadian, a buffalo!

As we made our way back to the city centre I of course had to find a donar kebab, as it my goal to have one in every country and judge the best of them all! After lunch we walked along the Rathaus where we realized it was pride week. We walked into the village, but it seemed very empty and there wasn’t that much going on. Apparently on the weekend it is where everyone goes to celebrate. We were able to snag a free ice cream from one of the booths and made our way to the University of Vienna. It is the oldest university in Austria and also within the German speaking world; founded in the thirteenth century. Inside the main entrance there was a courtyard where busts of famous alumni we surrounding the perimeter. I personally would feel intimidated to be going to the same alma mater as scholars like Sigmund Freud.

We then later headed off to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, sadly the front of it was covered for restoration, but the inside did not disappoint! We then took a well deserved break in the park outside the church where the city had supplied lawn chairs. So we rested for and enjoyed the sunshine that made an appearance from behind the clouds. Afterwards we went back to Charlottes to go to her university wherever the rest of the roommates to watch a jazz concert that was playing. Apparently this band only comes to play once a year so we were lucky! They thankfully some classics that I knew and they also had a singer for a few songs who sang in English. So Andrea and I sang along to be joined with the rest of the crowd. It was a super fun atmosphere, there were people of all ages just enjoying the music! The Vienna imagined. After the concert we all headed into the park to watch the bats fly back an forth and gaze at the stars. However, the rain decided to make a reappearance and forced all to head back home.