Vienna, Austria: Land of the Giant Wieners

---

This would be my third venture into the beautiful country of Austria, but my first visit to its capital, Vienna (or Wien in local terms, and coincidentally where the Wiener Schnitzel comes from!).

With only 4 days left on the Oktoberfest countdown clock, we arrived early in the evening and made our way to Hotel Franzenshof. We were staying in a 4 bed room, which seemed nice enough until we noticed its complete lack of bathroom door! Fortunately the toilet was in a separate room, otherwise there would have been some serious stage fright going on. It did have the amusing effect of turning any remotely shiny object into the equivalent of a giant mirror that had to be aimed away while the girls were showering. Personally I just took it as an opportunity to sing in the shower and shout out things like "I'm doing the helicopter!".

So, Vienna. It didn't take long for us to realise that it was something of an architectural wonderland, as our first outing was met with one amazing structure after the next. St Stephen's Cathedral, Hofburg Palace, the Museum Quarter... all magnificent enough to warrant prolonged staring and severe shortening of camera trigger lives. And this was only a quick evening walk! I also quite liked Graben Street. 2000 years ago it was a trench (Or "Graben") in front of Roman settlement walls. Today it's a trendy pedestrianised street, with a busy yet relaxed atmosphere accompanying the many sidewalk restaurants and shops. An impressive sculpture also dominates the street - Called "Pestsäule", it was built in the late 1600's to commemorate the end of the Great Plague. Much like London this place has history just pouring out of every orifice, at every turn.

We did our usual bakery run the next morning. While nothing I've come across in my travels ever compares to a run-of-the-mill steak & cheese pie from a good kiwi bakery, the Austrians still get 2 thumbs up from me for their bakery food. Pain au chocolat, Apfelstrudel, pizzabread... all good stuff, and always immaculately presented. (Incidentally, Alicante in Spain wins my award for supplying the worst bakery food ever while I was celebrating my 30th there a couple of months ago. Mainly for one cold meat bun I bought, which contained a mix of what might well have been dog meat and panda phlegm. Gross!)

Our mission for the day was to check out Schönbrunn Palace, a short train ride away and easily comparable to the Palace of Versailles in Paris, complete with the over-sized but beautiful back garden. This is an apt comparison too, as it's also where Marie Antoinette grew up before moving to her rather deluded life in Versailles and getting the chop.

This really was a day's worth of sightseeing for us, as we did the full tour of the extravagant interior, followed by a jaunt through the gardens and losing ourselves in a couple of the mazes there. (I'm struggling not to use the word a-maze-ing here. Count yourselves lucky!)

I really shouldn't write when I'm hungry, as I'm now going to tell you what we had for dinner. With the Lonely Planet as our guide, we found a traditional Austrian restaurant (Zu den 2 Leiserln) and sat under trees in the back yard. The others all ordered the Wiener Schnitzel, which turned out to be half a cow hiding under a few crumbs. Seriously, they were the largest wiener schnitzels I've ever seen, especially James's one, and he made a good effort but was ultimately defeated by its sheer size. Not in the mood for wiener, I had the goulash, which came with venison, sausages, egg, bread dumpling, and an incredibly tasty rich gravy. Man am I starving after thinking about all that!

Being a tourist really takes it out of you, and we were all debating whether or not to go out that night. I'm really glad we did. Vienna was also celebrating Oktoberfest, and not far from our hotel we got a taste of what awaited us in just a few days. It was comparatively small in scale with only one full-sized beer tent, but the atmosphere was still there, albeit slightly less hectic. Then, when we thought we'd seen the whole thing, we found it was actually attached to the side of the bloody big (and permanent) Prater Fairground! We walked around the many rollercoasters and other thrill giving devices before I got talked into doing the tallest chair-o-copter in the world! At 117m high, it was actually quite a magical experience as we glided over the Vienna landscape at night. Doing 60km/h through the cold night air probably didn't do the cold I'd been fighting any good though!

Coming up next: A scenic drive through Austria's beautiful countryside to Salzberg, of Sound of Music fame, as well as Mozart's birthplace. It's now only 2 days to go until Oktoberfest!!

---

Photos

An over-exposed Vienna waterway
FYI: Yes, it's still the Danube river