Day 2 - Vienna (part 1)

Still slightly on U.S. time, we woke up quite early on Friday and were at the hotel's breakfast by 7 a.m. As we enjoyed breakfast in a café overlooking the cathedral, Vienna was making a very good first impression.

It might have been cold and rainy but we're from Seattle, dammit. And us Seattleites don't let weather woes ruin our plans, amiright?

Trusty umbrellas in hand and plugged into our best buddy Rick Steves' podcasts, we left the warm and dry hotel to begin exploring.



One perk of shoulder season: the natives aren't yet on holiday. A small group of school children were finishing Mass at St. Stephens' as we began our visit. It definitely brought back memories of my time at JFK Catholic Grade School, although our school masses weren't nearly this impressive! We started to explore discreetly as they finished mass by singing "This Little Light of Mine" in German. A more lovely start to the morning was not possible.  

Mozart's baptismal font.

We climbed 344 stairs to the top of the south tower. And might have walked off half of the previous night's schnitzel dinner.

The south tower view was totally worth the 344 stairs. The clerk was helpful and encouraged us to pick up a free map from the nearby TI because his maps were "4 Euros and crappy."

The "viewpoint" actually ended in a gift shop. Tacky, yes, but also warm and dry! And we had the entire area to ourselves, dodging a bullet of 20 loud school children who bursted in as we were leaving.

It was too rainy to walk to the next sight, so we took the underground -- the cleanest underground I've ever experienced -- to Karlskirche (St. Charles' Church). This 18th century church is considered one of the most outstanding Baroque churches in Vienna.

The church was undergoing major renovations at the time of our visit, but the scaffolding is only an eyesore in disguise of a unique opportunity: visitors can take an elevator and climb the remaining scaffolding to view the top of the cupola from the inside. Images that look beautiful from the floor look much different up close as they were painted to look dimensional from the ground, not from a bird's eye view.

Enroute to the church: A Starbucks across from a McDonalds. Welcome to America. Or the Vienna underground.

Karlskirche (St. Charles's Church)

Renovations are a necessary and expected part of European travel -- remember our visit to the Bridge of Sighs in Venice? But not all renovations come with a ride!

I heart audio guides.

After following the Trail of Broken Umbrellas (you couldn't pass a garbage can without a poor dead umbrella sticking out from it), we next visited the Wien Museum Karlsplatz. I'm a sucker for city museums -- what can I say? I like context! -- and Brendan enjoyed the city models and armor displays. We both got a kick watching another group of school children explore the museum. Apparently goofing off, running, and subsequently getting scolded by teachers is the universal field trip experience.

All this sightseeing and learning was making us hungry, so after consulting the only resource available (my Top 10 pocket guidebook) we skeptically made our way to one of its featured restaurants and were pleasantly surprised with good food and a fun atmosphere. Salm Brau is housed in a 17th century wine cellar, and we especially enjoyed the flute-heavy acoustic version of Santana's "Smooth" playing on the house sound. (It sounds weird, but trust me -- it was cool.)

Also, single ladies, you should stop by Salm Brau because I found ALL the men of Vienna. A group of 20+ guys were also enjoying lunch there. 

 Until next time… Auf Wiedersehen!