We woke up at 8:30 am and had coffee in our room. We decided to spend our Sunday like Viennese do, in a laid back style. After getting ready, we left our hotel at 11:30 am and headed to a cafe next to the Opera. It's an authentic local cafe and we were the only tourists there. The locals were sipping on their coffee, having pastries and reading newspapers. We shared a latte and had pancakes which were actually like crepes. The quality of lattes in Vienna has been the best on this trip so far.
We resumed our walking tour of the historic city area. For centuries, Vienna was the capital of a vast empire ruled by the Hapsburg family and the empire included Prague, Vienna and Budapest, all cities that are part of our current trip. In 1273, the noble family of Hapsburg claimed Charlemagne's title of Holy Roman Emperor and ruled a vast empire for the next six centuries.
We stopped at the Kaisergruft church where various famous members of the Hapsburg family are buried including Maria Theresa, the beloved ruler who ruled for 40 years, reformed the government, banned torture, funded schools and also found time to mother 16 children which she then married to different royal families in Europe to create and strengthen alliances. Maria Antoinette of "let them eat cake" fame was her youngest child. We spotted a Lebanese restaurant whose chicken schnitzel looked very appetizing so we sat there and tried it along with hummus while listening to the history of Hapsburgs on our Rick Steves audio guide. After that we continued walking on Karntner Strasse, passing the statue of Lady Providence (surrounded by figures symbolizing the rivers that flow into the Danube river) and making our way to the center of the historic city, the Saint Stephen's Cathedral. When Austria was a kingdom ruled by the Hapsburgs, the old city used to be enclosed inside a circular wall with Saint Stephen's Cathedral at its center. The circular wall has now been replaced by a ring road called the Ringstrasse.
Saint Stephen's Cathedral is very impressive with its south tower rising to a height of 450 feet with its colorful roof and its gothic and Romanesque outer facades. It's an imposing structure that has been central to Viennese history. After it was built in 1300, it was much too big for the small town but it's grandeur brought prestige to the town and put it on the map. That convinced the Hapsburgs to move the capital of their empire from Prague to Vienna. Vienna was invaded by Ottoman Turks in 1529 and the crusading invasions continued till 1683 when the Turks were driven away. That ushered in Vienna's rise as a great European city attracting talent from the entire German-speaking world. Composers like Mozart, scientists like Doppler (of Doppler effect fame) and the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud were all products of the intellectual culture of Vienna that focuses on living a good life and having stimulating conversations in cafes, even to this day. We went inside the church and appreciated the intricate statues of some 70 saints on gothic columns. There is also a chapel inside where Mozart had his wedding and had two of his children baptized there. We saw a magnificent pulpit, a huge pipe organ, the high altar and the painted altarpiece next to it. Thanks to the Viennese people's proactive measures in preserving the integral elements of this church during the Second World War, the church did not incur too much lasting damage. After visiting the church, we sat in the square next to it, called Stephen Platz and enjoyed ice cream from a nearby shop.
We resumed our walking tour and walked on the Graben, one of the world's first pedestrian-only streets. To this day, it has throngs of people, buildings with impressive architecture, lots of cafes and a lively atmosphere - the quintessential Europe. We detoured to a side street to see some famous local eateries. Both at cafes and restaurants, the regulars usually sit there so often and for so long that they get their telephone calls there too! Back on the Graben, we saw the Plague statue which was built by a king to thank God after Vienna was saved from Bubonic Plague only after 70,000 people had died. Then we continued walking to Kohlmarkt which is a street lined with the most unaffordable high end shopping stores but also includes the best chocolate store in town, the Demel. Their cakes are said to be the best in town and their Sacher Torte cake is supposed to be better than Sacher Cafe's version. We plan to go there tomorrow for breakfast.
We finally arrived at the Hofburg Palace, the winter residence of the Hapsburgs and a complex of several buildings including the famous Spanish Riding School (whose horses perform choreographed dance shows), the Imperial Apartments, the Imperial Treasury and 4 museums collectively called the Museum Quartier. We will come back to the Hofburg Palace tomorrow to go inside some of these buildings after we are done visiting the summer palace Schonbrunn which is outside the city limits.
We then came back to our hotel and took a nap for a couple of hours. After waking up, we got a dinner recommendation from our hotel concierge and set out again for the tram tour of the Ring Strasse. Unfortunately, a couple of stops into the tour, the ring road was cordoned off by the police so we couldn't continued the tram tour. Instead, we decided to walk the next couple of stops to the Danube river where the recommended restaurant was located. The restaurant's location was picture perfect and we got a table right next to the glass wall of the restaurant, overlooking the river and its cruise ships. The food was impeccable. We had beef steaks with mushrooms and a molten lava cake for dessert. I also had their latte which was the best coffee I've had on the entire trip so far. We walked back to our hotel and realized that we've walked more than 100 km in the last 8 days. Time to go to bed now since it's going to be a busy sightseeing day tomorrow, as opposed to the Viennese Sunday we spent today. Till the next update, take care and goodbye!
We resumed our walking tour of the historic city area. For centuries, Vienna was the capital of a vast empire ruled by the Hapsburg family and the empire included Prague, Vienna and Budapest, all cities that are part of our current trip. In 1273, the noble family of Hapsburg claimed Charlemagne's title of Holy Roman Emperor and ruled a vast empire for the next six centuries.
We stopped at the Kaisergruft church where various famous members of the Hapsburg family are buried including Maria Theresa, the beloved ruler who ruled for 40 years, reformed the government, banned torture, funded schools and also found time to mother 16 children which she then married to different royal families in Europe to create and strengthen alliances. Maria Antoinette of "let them eat cake" fame was her youngest child. We spotted a Lebanese restaurant whose chicken schnitzel looked very appetizing so we sat there and tried it along with hummus while listening to the history of Hapsburgs on our Rick Steves audio guide. After that we continued walking on Karntner Strasse, passing the statue of Lady Providence (surrounded by figures symbolizing the rivers that flow into the Danube river) and making our way to the center of the historic city, the Saint Stephen's Cathedral. When Austria was a kingdom ruled by the Hapsburgs, the old city used to be enclosed inside a circular wall with Saint Stephen's Cathedral at its center. The circular wall has now been replaced by a ring road called the Ringstrasse.
Saint Stephen's Cathedral is very impressive with its south tower rising to a height of 450 feet with its colorful roof and its gothic and Romanesque outer facades. It's an imposing structure that has been central to Viennese history. After it was built in 1300, it was much too big for the small town but it's grandeur brought prestige to the town and put it on the map. That convinced the Hapsburgs to move the capital of their empire from Prague to Vienna. Vienna was invaded by Ottoman Turks in 1529 and the crusading invasions continued till 1683 when the Turks were driven away. That ushered in Vienna's rise as a great European city attracting talent from the entire German-speaking world. Composers like Mozart, scientists like Doppler (of Doppler effect fame) and the father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud were all products of the intellectual culture of Vienna that focuses on living a good life and having stimulating conversations in cafes, even to this day. We went inside the church and appreciated the intricate statues of some 70 saints on gothic columns. There is also a chapel inside where Mozart had his wedding and had two of his children baptized there. We saw a magnificent pulpit, a huge pipe organ, the high altar and the painted altarpiece next to it. Thanks to the Viennese people's proactive measures in preserving the integral elements of this church during the Second World War, the church did not incur too much lasting damage. After visiting the church, we sat in the square next to it, called Stephen Platz and enjoyed ice cream from a nearby shop.
We resumed our walking tour and walked on the Graben, one of the world's first pedestrian-only streets. To this day, it has throngs of people, buildings with impressive architecture, lots of cafes and a lively atmosphere - the quintessential Europe. We detoured to a side street to see some famous local eateries. Both at cafes and restaurants, the regulars usually sit there so often and for so long that they get their telephone calls there too! Back on the Graben, we saw the Plague statue which was built by a king to thank God after Vienna was saved from Bubonic Plague only after 70,000 people had died. Then we continued walking to Kohlmarkt which is a street lined with the most unaffordable high end shopping stores but also includes the best chocolate store in town, the Demel. Their cakes are said to be the best in town and their Sacher Torte cake is supposed to be better than Sacher Cafe's version. We plan to go there tomorrow for breakfast.
We finally arrived at the Hofburg Palace, the winter residence of the Hapsburgs and a complex of several buildings including the famous Spanish Riding School (whose horses perform choreographed dance shows), the Imperial Apartments, the Imperial Treasury and 4 museums collectively called the Museum Quartier. We will come back to the Hofburg Palace tomorrow to go inside some of these buildings after we are done visiting the summer palace Schonbrunn which is outside the city limits.
We then came back to our hotel and took a nap for a couple of hours. After waking up, we got a dinner recommendation from our hotel concierge and set out again for the tram tour of the Ring Strasse. Unfortunately, a couple of stops into the tour, the ring road was cordoned off by the police so we couldn't continued the tram tour. Instead, we decided to walk the next couple of stops to the Danube river where the recommended restaurant was located. The restaurant's location was picture perfect and we got a table right next to the glass wall of the restaurant, overlooking the river and its cruise ships. The food was impeccable. We had beef steaks with mushrooms and a molten lava cake for dessert. I also had their latte which was the best coffee I've had on the entire trip so far. We walked back to our hotel and realized that we've walked more than 100 km in the last 8 days. Time to go to bed now since it's going to be a busy sightseeing day tomorrow, as opposed to the Viennese Sunday we spent today. Till the next update, take care and goodbye!
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