Danube Extravaganza: Why Is the Danube So Far Away? - Days 6 & 7

Hello Days 6 & 7!  

Where did we leave off?  Oh yes, the day where I had things planned out, but then a misreading of a calendar led me to completely rearrange my day.  At the end of my first full day in Vienna, I had sat in my bedroom at the hostel plotting out my next two days.  My plan was to start Day 6 off by seeing the world famous Lipizzaner stallions train.  I had looked at the calendar on their website, confirmed they were not on vacation, so it should all workout.  The thing is, I forgot Europe tends to work on a Monday to Sunday calendar, so when I looked at the calendar on their website I saw that there was no training on the first day of the week, but there was on the following 5 days.  I didn’t actually look at the days of the week.  Turns out that they do training from Tuesday through Saturday, not Monday through Friday.  So I turned up to the ticket counter to find it closed with a sign saying there is no training on Mondays.  Plans changed!  I turned around and headed across the palace to the entrance to the Sisi Museum there at the Hofburg (the Spanish Riding School where the Lipazzaners are is also at the Hofburg).  I still did get to see some of them through the windows of their stalls. Also, funny story...as was walking over there, I was thinking to myself, "I must be close! I've got to be almost there." And then I caught a whiff and said, "that smells like a horse," and it was.

Oh look!  It's a horse!

The first hour or so that I was at the Sisi Museum, I actually wandered through their collection of dining goods.  They had so many different sets of plates, silverware, candelabras (turns out Lumiere from the new live action Beauty and the Beast had some cousins at the Hofburg).  I never thought that I’d be fascinated by this sort of thing, but the audioguide talked about what the different collections were used for, where they came from, and how dining at the palace worked, so it was really more fascinating that it sounds.  No pictures were allowed so I don’t have any pictures from the collection.

From the kitchen collection, you move into the actual exhibit about Sisi (Empress Elisabeth).  She has obtained a sort of mythical persona in Austria and Hungary since her death.  During her life she really didn’t enjoy palace life.  She was more of a free spirit.  While her husband, Emperor Franz Joseph, absolutely adored her, she was more ambivalent about the marriage.  She married him at only 16, so that was probably part of it.  But anyways, she suffered from depression from dealing with life and people in the palace, so she basically left for long periods of time.  She would travel Europe, and avoid going back to Austria for as long as she could.  And then to add to the myth, she ended up being assassinated by an Italian (who had wanted to assassinated someone else, but that person changed their plans and wasn’t present that day so Sisi it was instead).  The exhibit talked first about that mythical persona she had, and then laid out the facts.  Then it moved onto the apartments that she and Franz Joseph used while in residence at the Hofburg, which was typically all, but the summer months.  As you can guess, it is elaborate and beautiful, and no pictures allowed.

After leaving the Hofburg, I wandered around a bunch.  The Hofburg is actually quite large and I think many of the buildings I passed were actually still part of it; it is just hard to tell because you’re not getting an aerial view.  The Hofburg is used for a variety of things from museums to government offices, so they get good use out of the old palace these days.  Also across the street is the Austrian Parliament building.  

Austrian Parliament

While wandering around, I wandered across a winter festival.  Mainly they had ice skating and some food places.  But instead of an ice skating rink, they had an ice skating track that was about 10 feet wide and went up and down and around.  It looked more fun than just regular ice skating on a rink.  While there I got some kasespatzle for lunch; that would be cheese spatzle.  Spatzle being a type of noodle.

The ice skating track.  I think this would be a fun Olympic sport.

My Kasespatzle.  It was delicous!

I walked back around the backside of the Hofburg before having a moment of panic.  I thought I had left my camera at the WC I had used before leaving the festival.  It wasn’t in my pocket and I couldn’t find it in my bag.  I jumped on the tram to head back.  About halfway back, I found my camera buried in the very bottom of my bag.  Crisis averted. Whew!

In spring there will be a Trebel Clef of flowers in front of the Mozart statue.

After this moment I headed over to Stadtpark and then to the Belvedere.  Stadtpark is just a nice little park in the city.  I sat for a while watching birds at the pond, while listening to an audiobook.  It is moments like this that I try to find time for on my trip.  It isn’t just go, go, go like some might think.  I learned during my first solo international trip to Spain that I needed to make sure to just stop and take a break sometimes or I would just get too exhausted.  And it’s no wonder, because I’ve been averaging somewhere between 11 and 14 miles a day worth of walking.

Just sitting here watching the birds.

From Stadtpark and the birds, I headed to the Belvedere.  I ended up on the wrong tram, which took me to the side of the park with the (closed) Botanical gardens.  I ended up having to walk all the way around one side of the park to get to the part that was open.  The Belvedere has two sections, Upper and Lower.  They are art museums.  I decided that on this trip I wasn’t really going to do art, so I just went to see the buildings and wander past the fountains and gardens.  

The Upper Belevedere.

Day 6 was my last night staying at the first hostel I booked in Vienna.  After looking at train timetables and ticket prices, as well as what I had going on for my last day in Vienna, I opted to stay one more night in Vienna and then hop an early train out to Salzburg.  I also booked my last night in a different hostel after not being very happy with the one I had been at.  I wish I had booked the new one instead during the first go-around.

At least the sunset from the hostel was amazing!

Day 7 started how Day 6 was supposed to.  With horses!  I headed out to the Spanish Riding School and they were open this time!  I got tickets to watch their morning training session.  I’m not a huge horse fan, but they are super well known, and I remember watching the segment on them when Samantha Brown went to Vienna on her Passport to Europe show (my favorite show in high school).  I decided to splurge and spend a whole 2 Euros extra so I could get a seat, instead of standing room only spots.  During training, 5 riders were out there at a time on their Lipazzaners, with 2 training sessions happening for a total of 10 horses.  They said that some of the horses we would see were already professionals, while others were just starting their training, or still working their way up to professional level.  A similar thing happens for the riders.  During the 2nd half of training there was an apprentice rider out there.  She wore a different uniform than the official riders.  It was interesting watching the horses prance and hop and skip.  There was one guy during the first half of training who had a horse that was being very ornery and didn’t really seem like he wanted to be there.

After I was done seeing the horses, I headed up to the Anker Clock.  It is supposed to be an entertaining watch at noon, but unfortunately it didn’t go off.  Only at about 12:02, did someone see a sign saying they were repairing the clock so it wasn’t working.  Bummer.  

Next I decided it was time to actually see the Danube, since this is my Danube Extravaganza.  Unlike in Budapest, where the city is pretty much built up along the river, Vienna was built along a channel of the Danube.  The good news is upon my arrival in Vienna, I had bought a week-long all-transit pass, so I literally rode the U-Bahn out to the river, got off, took a look at it for about 2 minutes, and then got back on the next train.  I then rode back to the Prater.  The Prater is a large park in Vienna.  A small section of it is an amusement park, with a ferris wheel, smaller roller coasters, and other rides.  I took my time zigzagging through the park.  Every 20 minutes or so I would sit down and listen to the audiobook I have downloaded on my phone for about 20 minutes.  I sat and watched birds at the pond, kids skipping rocks on another pond, and a family flying a kite in a bigger area.  Finding time to do stuff like this is relaxing.  I do a lot walking on vacation, but I also make sure I take some time to rest.  Especially because my feet start hurting after a while.

Mistletoe in some of the trees of the Prater.

When I felt like I had done the Prater, I headed to St. Stephen’s Cathedral to take a look at it.  This cathedral is more gothic in nature than the other churches I’ve been in so far.  It looked more like pictures I’ve seen of Notre Dame.  This church was saved from destruction during WWII, when a Wehrmacht captain disregarded orders to smash it to smithereens.  It did end up losing its roof though, due to fire.  They are currently doing some work on the towers on the outside of the church.  And in the plaza outside the church, they were in the process of setting up a 1-Year memorial for the war in Ukraine.

After this, I felt I had pretty much done Vienna.  I definitely liked Budapest more.  While I’d consider returning to Budapest some day, I don’t think I’ll return to Vienna.

Danube Extravaganza: Signs for Strudel - Day 5

What is it with me and train station issues?  I had so much trouble trying to figure out how to get out of the one train station in Vienna and to a different one which was next to the hostel I booked.  I wandered around a bit, then managed to find an information booth.  The guy there told me what line I needed to take to get there, but then after getting down there, couldn’t find a place to buy a ticket.  I wandered around a bit more before finding one.  In hindsight, there was a ticket booth in the area where I was, but I hadn’t realized it.  Anyways…eventually I got on a tram that took me from one train station to the other.

My Vienna hostel is basically located right on top of the Westbanhof Station, on top of an IKEA.  The good news is this means it is easy to get places.  Unlike in Budapest, there were no hostels in the vicinity of the majority of the places I wanted to visit, so being next to a major station with trains, trams, and U-bahn (their Subway) is rather useful.  So overall, there will likely be less walking in Vienna, than in Budapest.  In Budapest I was averaging around 12 miles a day, while on Day 1 of Vienna, I only did 10.

After 24 hrs in my Vienna hostel I will say I’m not impressed.  It has a 9.2 rating on HostelWorld, so I expected better.  The beds aren’t comfortable and my pillow flattens down to nothing.  The “kitchen” is a small microwave and a fridge.  Most hostels have a large kitchen space with at the very least, a stove.  I’m booked here for 3 nights.  If I decide I need a little more time in Vienna, I might move to a different hostel.  We’ll see what happens, I guess.

So on Day 5 on my Danube Extravaganza, I headed out to Schonbrunn Palace.  This was the summer home for the Habsburgs from the 1700s until the death of the Austrian empire at the conclusion of WWI.  Schonbrunn consists of the palace and then the palace grounds, which are now a giant park.  As I saw runners jogging through the palace grounds, a part of me wondered what Empress Maria Theresa or Emperor Franz Joseph would have thought about seeing women (or men) running through their back garden in leggings and a tight fitting workout shirt.  

I bought the Sisi Ticket, which got me into the Schonbrunn Palace with a Grand Audio Tour which took you room-by-room through the private apartments where Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth lived, as well as the rooms where Maria Theresa resided a century earlier, and will get me into the Hofburg Palace later.  As you can expect, they were grand.  The rooms had fantastic walls ranging from a very fine walnut paneled room (Franz Joseph’s receiving room) to a beautiful blue papered room with white flowers in Elisabeth’s apartments, to a room with waist-high to ceiling paneled frames with sketches done on them in blue and white to mimic porcelain (Maria Theresa’s apartments).  There was a room that, while nowhere near as grand, was somewhat similar in plan to the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, minus the floor to ceiling mirrors, and really just using a few mirrors along the wall to make it brighter and more open.  They didn’t allow pictures inside, so I have nothing to show you in there.

Gloriette is situtated up on top of the hill.

After leaving the inside portion of the palace, I wandered the palace grounds.  I bet they’re absolutely lovely when there are leaves on the trees and flowers are in bloom.  In some places you could see flowers starting to sprout.  I’m assuming those were something like tulips or daffodils.  I zigzagged my way around, looking at the fountains along the way, before heading up the hill to a place known as Gloriette.  It is a building up on the hill out back of the palace.  From up there you have a great view of the city.  It is crazy to think that when the palace was built, it was outside of town. As I started to make my way down from Gloriette, it started to sprinkle.  Really just small drops that didn’t really get you too wet.  As I made my way further around the gardens on the long way back to the palace, it stopped, so I took a seat for a little while and just enjoyed being there.  In nearly 2 hours, I wandered around 3.65 miles around the gardens (I wanted a GPS map of my wanderings…it’s as fun as I expected).  If I wasn’t worried about more rain coming (which I could see was on its way), I would have done some more ins and outs around the grounds.  

The Palm House on the Schonbrunn grounds.  It has 3 zones inside for plants from different climates.

But since I knew rain was coming and heading down to the Belvedere or Stadtpark seemed like poor decisions, since they would involve a lot of walking around outside, I headed in to Karlskirche, or St. Charles Church.  It was a unique church with two large pillars sticking straight up from the building that were elaborately carved from top to bottom with scenes.  Unlike many Catholic churches, this church didn’t have a cross shape really, when looking at the worship space.  I was more oval instead.  My favorite part of the church, besides the tall pillars outside, was the large oval dome.  You see a lot of round domes, but not a lot of oval domes.  And it had frescos painted all over it, so high up that the painter certainly couldn’t have any fear of heights.

Part of one of the pillars on Karlskirche.

When I came out of the church it was raining again, but a bit harder this time.  My feet were hurting and as it was nearing 4, I decided it seemed like a good time to be done for the day.  I headed back to the hostel, bought a frozen dinner, and then ate an early supper.  I’m hoping for an early bedtime tonight because I didn’t sleep well last night.  And I’m thinking tomorrow night, supper might just be something from the food court in the train station next door since I can’t exactly make something for myself.  I’ll try to avoid the McDonald’s; we’ll see if I can find anything more Austrian there instead.  Since I didn’t do a ton of wandering around besides at the palace, I didn’t find any Austrian sweets to try today.  They don’t do chimney cakes, but maybe I can find something else delicious.  I’ve seen signs for strudel.