Vienna, Austria; Saint Stephen’s Cathedral, Weiner Schnitzel, Hofburg Palace, Shonbrun Palace, Sacher Torte

Our first stop on this trip was Vienna, mainly because it was the easiest spot to find a reasonable flight with our United Miles.  United has unfortunately made it increasingly difficult to use miles!

We stayed here for three nights, and Vienna deserves more, particularly if you are trying to get over jet-lag!  Fortunately we will be coming back to Vienna as part of our Danube River cruise, so we’ll have one more day to hit some things we missed.

First off, Trip Advisor highly rates the Hotel Am Stephansplatz, and they are spot on!  This is a beautiful and very well run hotel right in the center of Vienna, and literally right next door to the gorgeous Saint Stephen’s Cathedral.  Construction of a church on this site started as early as 1137.  The beautiful colored tile roof is a more recent addition, replacing a roof that burned down in 1945 during the last days of WWII.

Unfortunately the interior is nowhere near as stunning as the exterior.  It was also incredibly crowded, but then it seemed everything in Vienna was overrun.

On our way to dinner our first night we ran across this statue (there must be over a thousand statues in Vienna!) of Johannes Gutenberg, a German who invented the “moveable-type printing press” in the mid 1400’s.  His invention is said to have led to an information revolution, spreading literature en masse across Europe.

We had booked a reservation at Figlmuller Bakerstrase, a local institution said to have invented the Weiner Schnitzel.  This is a “must do” when you visit Vienna!

Kim and I made the mistake of not sharing a Schnitzel….holy crap are these things huge?

Make sure you make a reservation!  When we arrived the line was just as long as when we left!  This is not the entire line…it continues inside, and this is at 8:00 at night!

Here is a night shot of Saint Stephen’s Cathedral from our hotel balcony.

The next morning we made our way to the Hofburg Palace, one of the main tourist sites of Vienna.

Here you can tour the 13th Century Imperial Apartments of the Habsburg Empire, which lasted for 600 years, up until 1918!  This top Vienna site is known as the Sisi Museum, where the Austrian Imperial couple, Emperor Franz Joseph II and Empress Elisabeth (known as “Sisi”) lived during their rule.  I didn’t take a huge number of photos, but this exhibit was of interest, Sisi’s medical box, which contained an injection of cocaine, something that was used by the wealthy for ailments in the 1800’s.

Cocaine was likely a good idea for Sisi, since she was apparently so unhappy in life and marriage.  She met Franz Joseph at the age of 15, when he was supposed to be meeting her older sister.  He was so smitten with her he immediately made it clear he wanted her as his wife (bear in mind they were first cousins…royals are weird!).  While initially thrilled at becoming an Empress, she quickly soured on the loss of her freedoms, and seemed pretty much aimless and depressed for the rest of her life.  Apparently Netflix has made a show about her called The Empress, and it has an IMDB score of 7.8, so we’ll have to check it out after we get home.

Below is the room where Emperor Joseph greeted his subjects, meeting with up to 100 guests a day every morning.  He was open to meeting any of his subjects for any reason, giving them each about three minutes of his time.  The list on the table below is an example of what he would preview before his subjects were allowed to enter.

This is the main dining room, where they would eat their daily meals. Sisi was said to rarely attend these events, preferring to be elsewhere…likely eating at one of the many local KFC’s (how did they make such an inroad in Europe?).

After touring Hofburg Palace, we took a walk around the adjacent Volksgarten Park.  This is a view of City Hall from the park.  I didn’t see a Volkswagen anywhere, so they likely need to change the name.

This is the view of the Austrian State Parliament building.  Quite ornate!  I think they must have just cleaned this one, as it was spotless.

Yet another statue, this one of Maria Theresa, Emperor Franz Joseph’s mother, who was ruler of Austria and the rest of the Habsburg regions for 40 years before her son took over in 1848.

Just outside the Hofsburg Palace there were some Roman ruins that they discovered during recent roadwork.

We attended a string quartet concert in a very small venue where Mozart actually performed, the Mozarthouse.  They even performed Eine Kleine Nachtmusik!  It was excellent!

On our last day in Vienna we visited yet another palace, the Shonbrunn, about 20 minutes by Uber from central Vienna.  This palace was a second home to the royals, with Franz Joseph and Sisi spending a lot of their time here when not in Hofsburg.  This place is WAY bigger than Hofsburg, and sits away from the prying eyes of central Vienna, so I can understand why they might prefer this palace.

I liked this artwork showing the young Emperor meeting his subjects during an event.  The painting shows the extent of the grounds, showing a building called Gloriette in the far background, which will be seen in further photos.

This small bed is where Franz Joseph died, with the painting to the right showing his death pose.  They were strange folks back then!  Who wants to have a painting of themselves lying dead?

The massive “Great Gallery” was used for large parties and events, and also served as a neutral location for a legendary meeting between John F. Kennedy and Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev in 1961.

This is apparently the most famous painting of Maria Theresa.  I’ve gotta be honest, I never heard of her before this, but then again, I had never heard of Franz Joseph and Elizabeth either.  We just don’t learn this stuff in the US…or I was asleep when this was covered…it could go either way…I was pretty bored in high school.

While touring the gardens I thought this aggressively trimmed tree was rather interesting.  How many years of trimming did that take to have it grow like that?

You can take a short hike up a hill to the previously mentioned spot called Gloriette, which overlooks the Shonbrunn Palace and grounds.

The view is excellent!  We had perfect weather.

Our last stop of the day was at Hotel Sacher, where you can try the famous Sacher Torte.  This was mentioned to me by our friend Paul Fridrich, who advises that he comes here every time he is in Vienna.

Nice experience, but the torte was on the dry side.  Maybe they’ve slipped?  Be prepared for a line to get in…apparently this is a popular bucket list item in Vienna.

One final night view of Saint Stephen’s Cathedral.  They really do an excellent job of lighting things up at night!

Coming up next, we head to Tokaj, the wine region known as “The Wine of Kings, the King of Wines”.  I’ll be the judge of that!