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Saturday was another nice spring day. Our goal was to visit Belvedere Palace, which required using the tram system. We figured it out easily enough. The trams, trains and subways all use the same pass, and are interchangeable. With one day pass, you can ride all three modes of transportation! I was really beginning to dig the public transport here! The only thing about trams is you literally have to dodge them when walking around the city.
We arrived at Belvedere and I was in awe, once again. The complex consists of two palaces..Upper and Lower Belvedere, with a lovely expanse of green in between. I'm sure it gets even more beautiful in later months, as not much was in bloom yet in April. We enjoyed taking photos of each other in front of statues (required!) and taking in all the loveliness before heading into Upper Belvedere.
This museum has artwork as well, including the famous Kiss by Klimt. That image is EVERYWHERE in Vienna..it's a big deal. You can purchase The Kiss umbrellas, playing cards, tote bags, t-shirts, anything you can think of. It's as overplayed as a top 40 pop tune, and I was pretty over it
Belvedere
The most photogenic place....by the time I got to Belvedere. Then I walked into the room where it was, surrounded by a huge crowd of photo-takers, and I was surprisingly impressed. Klimt uses gold leaf on this artwork, and it just shines brilliantly on a black background. That is something that cannot be captured on a fridge magnet.
There were other impressive paintings here as well, including a Van Gogh that I just loved, and some beautiful religious art and sculpture. We weren't museumed out at this point, and were enjoying the visit. Lower Belvedere is not as attractive a palace, but contains some state rooms which were worth seeing. In order to get there, you get to walk through the prettiest of gardens, so why not? We quickly checked it out, and when we got back outside, we were incredibly thrilled to see a bride and groom getting their wedding photos taken in various parts of the palace. The couple were about as beautiful as the palace itself, riding around in a fancy horse and carriage. I managed to get one good far-away photo without looking like a stalker. Other palace visitors weren't so concerned about the stalker aspect, but the
couple were gracious and, obviously, elated on this day.
We decided to take the HOHO bus back into town, since it was free the entire time we had the passes. I would not recommend using this tourist bus and an easy way to get around, but if you have time to kill and would like to see the city, it's not bad. We spent some time waltzing around the City Center again, stopping on the pedestrian street for a little snack. We decided to head out to Grinzing, but it was a bit early. Our solution was to use the HOHO again. It goes directly to Grinzing and takes its time, which would land us there a bit closer to dinner time. And we'd get to see and learn about areas of Vienna we hadn't seen yet.
We got off the bus on the Grinzing exit and felt like we were in a completely different world. The village is just outside the big city, and is in an area chock-full of wineries. The little villages sell the local wines in establishments called Heurigers. They are basically restaurants that serve food, but it is perfectly acceptable to come in
Belvedere
a wedding couple here for some prime photo ops and enjoy the wines as well. They all have outdoor eating areas complete with color coordinated blankets to keep you warm. The heurigers were just charming, as was the village itself. We really enjoyed walking up the hilly road, scoping out the next place to sample some wine.
We ended up drinking at two different heurigers. The glasses of wine only run you about 2 euro, and you get quite a bit as well. The wine was tasty, fresh and clean tasting. This day up in Grinzing was one of my favorites. As I was sitting, wrapped in a plaid blanket, sipping wine in this most-adorable village, I had that "this is the life!" feeling. I felt perfectly relaxed and content.
After having our fill of wine, we decided on Alter Bach for some dinner. Mom had roast pork, and it ended up being her favorite dish the entire trip. I went with sausages and sauerkraut, which was delicious. Honestly, the sauerkraut was so good; so fresh tasting and much less vinegary than I'm used to. I devoured the entire thing! You can't go wrong with sausages, either. How I loved Grinzing! We planned on returning, but the
weather took a cold turn so we never did.
We took the tram back to the subway, back to our home.
We stopped at the grocery again, and purchased some of the wines we had just discovered, now that we are experts!! What a great day.
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