Day 3 - Vienna (part 2)

Traveling is made memorable by random acts of kindness and random acts of stupidity. Nobody's operating on full mental capacity while traveling, so "here's your sign" moments are bound to happen.

Rule: Always carry some cash on you. You never know when you'll run into a restaurant or attraction that doesn't take credit cards.

We know this. We KNOW this. We almost NEVER leave the hotel without cash - not a big thick wad of dough with a sign that says "Rob Me," but a reasonable amount of small denominations.

And yet..

For some reason...

After waiting in line at Vienna's star attraction - the opera house - for one of its only tours on our last day in the city, we finally arrived at the vendor and were told those dreaded words:

Cash. Only.

Crushed, we stood there like the clueless tourists we appeared to be (ok- that we were, at least at that moment) until the ticketer took pity on us and lowered the price to meet the small amount of cash we had on hand. Although our pride was tarnished, we were spared a walk to the ATM and a 90 minute wait until the next tour.

The only way to see the inside of the world famous Wiener Staatsoper (or Vienna State Opera House) is through a tour or by seeing an opera. Since neither Brendan or I were about to pretend we liked opera - but we do love architecture! - we opted for the former.

The original building was completed in the mid-1800s and almost entirely destroyed in WWII. Our Austrian guide - a young woman who spoke lightning quick - definitely laid down the guilt trip on our group of mostly elderly men & women. "After the allies bombed us..." was mentioned several times with pointed looks at the older men in the group. Brendan said afterwards that we should have retorted, "You're welcome for us liberating you!"

But I digress.

The current opera house is beautiful with ornate details, marble staircases, and gorgeous rooms throughout.

After our opera adventure, we returned to the hotel for people watching outside St. Stephen's and ran into a bizarre "Save the Dogs" protest/parade that featured one poor terrier that definitely preferred sleeping over marching. 

We turned in early-ish after dinner since we would be catching a 9 a.m. train to Hallstatt the next day.

The Vienna State Opera House:

The view looking up from near the orchestra pit. Does this remind you of somewhere?

 Auf Wiedersehen!