Sunday in Vienna

This morning we are heading out on an organized “up close and personal” tour of Vienna which basically means we are walking with a guide to the subway where we will take the train into city center. From there we will spend the next two hours or so walking around. We opted for this in place of the bus tour.

But first breakfast. We joined Mary Beth and Kevin and grabbed stuff from the buffet. Today’s breakfast was meh but we didn’t have a ton of time to order something special. I did confirm that soup at bedtime isn’t a Canadian thing…it’s a Kevin thing.

At 8:45am, we headed out with our listening devices. Greg and I thought we were so smart to get an Airfly Bluetooth transmitter so we could use our AirPods to hear. My AirPods wouldn’t connect so we each used one of Greg’s. That worked for less than an hour before it became more annoying that cool. They kept disconnecting and then got static-y. So we went old school with the wired earpiece.

Warning: this post is mostly a picture book.

No clue what the ad is for but I’m pretty sure it’s something I’d like…like dessert.

We are less than 45 mins in and someone already needs a bathroom break. Also, the heavy breathing by our tour guide into the mic is almost more than I can take. He’s very nice though. I just can’t.

We popped out at the opera house on a cool cloudy on and off drizzly day. Eighty percent of the opera house here was destroyed in WW2. Many people think the opera house is ugly including the Emperor who criticized its design. It was designed by a gay architect who was so upset by the criticism he had a heart attack. Once he passed his lover was so distraught he committed suicide. The emperor felt responsible for two deaths due to his criticism so he never criticized it again. For the next 45 years he made the same statement over and over which was “it was really nice. I enjoyed it a lot.”

Prior to the 1850’s the city of Vienna was surrounded by a wall. When the wall was taken down it made room for 800 new buildings.

The opera house was supposed to be taller but they miscalculated the level of the street. Many people thought it looked like a train station including the Germans which is why it was bombed during the war.

Vienna is famous for its sachre torte which is a chocolate torte with apricot filling. I had read that Hotel Suchre was the place to go but was corrected by our tour guide who said all the tourists go there. This is where the recipe was developed years and years ago but tastes have changed over time. Theirs was described as very sweet and dry. He advised us to go to really any other place in town as all cafes have their own versions which have adapted to today’s tastes.

This is a famous Wiener schnitzel cart because it’s the only one that serves champagne. The reason for that is the close proximity to the opera house. People leaving the opera apparently want champagne with their Wiener schnitzel.

Greg thought this place was funny because it’s named Free Willy

Horse trailers for the famous Lipizzaners

This place teaches dance lessons where, according to our tour guide, everyone wants to take lessons. They also teach etiquette lessons for things like how to do the perfect hand kiss.

One of the rulers hated this building and asked for the flower boxes to be added so it wasn’t so ugly. He supposedly kept his blinds closed so he didn’t need to see it.

Basically all stores in town were closed today. Austria has the most rigid opening hours in all of Europe. Stores close at 6pm Saturday and don’t reopen until Monday morning. This is due to the Catholic Church as well as trade groups wanting businesses closed. The only stores that were open were really souvenir shops.

This is one of Vienna’s famous coffee houses. They became famous because of poor living conditions in town. Often there wasn’t running water in apartments so residents would spend hours in coffee shops. Also there are numerous examples of artists in town not being able to pay for their coffee who paid by gifting a painting for their coffee and later they became famous painters.

Our tour guide explained that often the workers in the coffee shops aren’t the nicest but it’s common for people to stay for hours and only buy one cup of coffee.