On our last day in Vienna, we woke up at 8:30 am and had in-room coffee. We packed our suitcases, got ready, checked-out and stored our suitcases with our hotel and left for sightseeing at about 10:30 am. We were running a little behind our planned schedule so we decided to skip breakfast at Demel and instead decided that we'll go there for lunch if we were back on schedule.
We bought a couple of sandwiches at the U-bahn metro train next to our hotel and boarded the train to Schonbrunn Palace station. It was a short ride of about 10 minutes during which we quickly finished our breakfast. After getting off the train, we walked for about 10 minutes to reach the Schonbrunn Palace, the summer residence of the Hapsburg family. We toured 40 rooms of the palace. We saw rooms decorated by and used during Maria Theresa's rule and also rooms used by another famous Hapsburg King, Franz Joseph. We also saw rooms used by other members of the Hapsburg family. We saw the rooms where the king received his guests, the great hall for balls and parties, the dining room and rooms where state guests stayed. The great hall was the most impressive and was a smaller version of the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in France on the outskirts of Paris. After touring the rooms and admiring their wall and ceiling decorations, we walked to the vast gardens of the palace. We walked the length of the gardens till we reached a huge fountain of mythical creatures. It was a great photo op and we went behind the fountain to get a complete view of the gardens and the palace. Maria Theresa and Franz Joseph were both very popular monarchs well liked by their people. They worked a lot to promote arts, culture and equality. That ethos can still be seen in the government of Austria and specially in the city government of Vienna. I'll quote two small examples. Renting bicycles to ride within the city is free for the first hour. Then during the month of July and August, the city government hosts free concerts outside the city hall and has more than 20 stalls with free food, for 60 days straight. No wonder Vienna always ranks amongst the top 10 cities to live in, along with cities of Canada and Australia.
After leaving the palace, we took the U-bahn metro train back to Museums Quartier and then walked to Demel, the most famous shop for cakes and pastries in Vienna. We had salmon and mozzarella cheese finger sandwiches followed by a spinach torte, all of which were exquisite in taste, especially the spinach torte. Then we had their Sacher Torte and carrot cake. Their Sacher Torte is definitely better than the original one at Cafe Sacher. It was more moist and less bitter. We finished off with delicious lattes and then walked to our next stop of the day, the Hofburg Palace.
We toured three sections of the Hofburg Palace - the silver collection, the Sisi museum and the Imperial Apartments. The silver collection was an exhibition of porcelain and silver dinner sets that were used by the Hapsburg family. It was interesting to find out the history of each set and the occasion for which it was commissioned. The most interesting fact was that during wars, they got the silver dinner sets melted to create coins to fund the war but always commissioned a replacement set after the war. That's definitely something that has a lesson in it for the women of subcontinent, with respect to their jewelry.
Then we toured the Sisi museum which chronicles the life of Empress Elizabeth who was the wife of Franz Joseph and was affectionately known as Sisi. A few myths about her personality have pervaded popular culture but the museum sets the record straight by debunking most of those myths. For instance, there is a myth that Sisi rarely ate and was almost always dieting. It turns out that she didn't do that. In fact, she loved eating pastries but to maintain herself, she exercised. We saw the exercise equipment in her room in the Imperial Apartments. Sisi had a tough start to her adult life. Married at 15, had her first child at 16, had her second child at 17, lost her first child at 18 - she saw more emotional ups and downs in those 4 years than any teenager can handle. To top it all off, she was the Empress of the Hapsburgs' kingdom and had a certain social role to play in political dinners and parties. She couldn't handle all that and became an introvert and reclusive by moving away from the limelight. She suffered another setback in life when her son committed suicide when he was in his early 30s. Obviously, she became depressed and pretty much remained in mourning till her death a few years later. Her most significant political contribution was championing the Hungarian cause. In fact, she played a crucial role in convincing her husband to recognize Hungary and thus it became the Astro-Hungarian Empire. The last section that we saw were the rooms of the Imperial Apartments. They were very similar to the rooms in the Schonbrunn Palace. The most interesting thing that we saw was the exercise equipment in Sisi's room.
After this tour of the Hofburg Palace, we decided that we could also squeeze in the Ring Strasse tram tour that we were unable to complete yesterday. We shared a quick cheeseburger from a stand at the tram stop and then boarded the tram for a trip on the circular ring road around the city of Vienna where the walls of the city used to be located. During the one hour tour, our Rick Steves audio guide pointed out the Opera (opposite our hotel), a line of 5 star hotels, the huge city park with a gilded statue of the "Waltz King" Johann Strauss Junior, an old post office building, the Austrian intelligence department's building and an observatory for King Franz Joseph called Urania. Then the audio guide asked us to get off at a station and change trams. This was the Danube river site where we had dined yesterday. Since we had explored this area yesterday, we quickly caught the next tram to finish the tour. In the second part of the tour, we saw the City Hall, the Austrian Parliament, Vienna's Stock Exchange, University of Vienna, Natural History Museum in the Museums Quartier complex and finally a statue of German poet Schiller in the Academy of Fine Arts.
This statue was adjacent to our hotel and we could see the Academy of Fine Arts building from our room. We got off the tram here and walked to the Lebanese place where we had tried the Schnitzel. This time we ordered their mezzeh platter with different varieties of hummus with meat and also ordered what they had termed biryani. Compared to the Pakistani biryani, it was very different but still very tasteful. After dinner, we hurried to our hotel since we wanted to try and catch the train to Bratislava that left in half an hour at 8:21 pm, instead of waiting for the next one which would've come at 9:21 pm. We picked up our suitcases and took a taxi to the train station. We were there at 8:05 pm and had enough time to purchase the ticket and get on the train. Due to some confusion on my part, I thought the train ride was supposed to be 2 hours but we reached Bratislava in just 70 minutes. Perhaps because this was the hourly regional express whereas I might've confused it with the time taken by the regular non-express train.
Bratislava seems less developed so far. It is the first train station which did not have any elevators, escalators or ramps so I had to carry our two suitcases (weighing 25 and 30 kg) first a flight of stairs down and then a flight of stairs up! Then we took a cab to our hotel.
A note on cab drivers on this trip so far. Apart from the ones in Vienna, every single one of them ripped us off by overcharging. Some of them don't even bother to turn the meter on. The guy today was the most crooked of them all. I caught him manually adding small increments to the metered fare. I was really angry but in all such situations, as tourists, we are vulnerable and not really in a position to argue or do much about it so I just stared at him and kept my eye on the meter from there on, in case he repeated that. He sensed that I was on to his fraudulent scheme so he didn't mess with the meter again. We are getting better though and always ask them up front to give us an estimate. That way, they can't rip us off by too much. For reference, this guy gave us an estimate of 15 euros but since he was messing with the meter, it was showing 20.10. He knew that I suspected something so he told me that was fare was 20. In my mind, I said "no tip for you, buddy" and took all the change back.
We checked-in at our hotel which is really nice. We are staying in Bratislava just tonight. We'll check out tomorrow morning, probably take a quick bus tour of the city and then set off for Budapest before noon.
Some final words about Vienna. It's like the Paris of the Eastern half of Europe. Similarly, Prague is like the Rome of the Eastern half of Europe. Both of these are cities that we wouldn't mind visiting again. Time to get some sleep now. Till the next update from Budapest, take care!
We bought a couple of sandwiches at the U-bahn metro train next to our hotel and boarded the train to Schonbrunn Palace station. It was a short ride of about 10 minutes during which we quickly finished our breakfast. After getting off the train, we walked for about 10 minutes to reach the Schonbrunn Palace, the summer residence of the Hapsburg family. We toured 40 rooms of the palace. We saw rooms decorated by and used during Maria Theresa's rule and also rooms used by another famous Hapsburg King, Franz Joseph. We also saw rooms used by other members of the Hapsburg family. We saw the rooms where the king received his guests, the great hall for balls and parties, the dining room and rooms where state guests stayed. The great hall was the most impressive and was a smaller version of the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in France on the outskirts of Paris. After touring the rooms and admiring their wall and ceiling decorations, we walked to the vast gardens of the palace. We walked the length of the gardens till we reached a huge fountain of mythical creatures. It was a great photo op and we went behind the fountain to get a complete view of the gardens and the palace. Maria Theresa and Franz Joseph were both very popular monarchs well liked by their people. They worked a lot to promote arts, culture and equality. That ethos can still be seen in the government of Austria and specially in the city government of Vienna. I'll quote two small examples. Renting bicycles to ride within the city is free for the first hour. Then during the month of July and August, the city government hosts free concerts outside the city hall and has more than 20 stalls with free food, for 60 days straight. No wonder Vienna always ranks amongst the top 10 cities to live in, along with cities of Canada and Australia.
After leaving the palace, we took the U-bahn metro train back to Museums Quartier and then walked to Demel, the most famous shop for cakes and pastries in Vienna. We had salmon and mozzarella cheese finger sandwiches followed by a spinach torte, all of which were exquisite in taste, especially the spinach torte. Then we had their Sacher Torte and carrot cake. Their Sacher Torte is definitely better than the original one at Cafe Sacher. It was more moist and less bitter. We finished off with delicious lattes and then walked to our next stop of the day, the Hofburg Palace.
We toured three sections of the Hofburg Palace - the silver collection, the Sisi museum and the Imperial Apartments. The silver collection was an exhibition of porcelain and silver dinner sets that were used by the Hapsburg family. It was interesting to find out the history of each set and the occasion for which it was commissioned. The most interesting fact was that during wars, they got the silver dinner sets melted to create coins to fund the war but always commissioned a replacement set after the war. That's definitely something that has a lesson in it for the women of subcontinent, with respect to their jewelry.
Then we toured the Sisi museum which chronicles the life of Empress Elizabeth who was the wife of Franz Joseph and was affectionately known as Sisi. A few myths about her personality have pervaded popular culture but the museum sets the record straight by debunking most of those myths. For instance, there is a myth that Sisi rarely ate and was almost always dieting. It turns out that she didn't do that. In fact, she loved eating pastries but to maintain herself, she exercised. We saw the exercise equipment in her room in the Imperial Apartments. Sisi had a tough start to her adult life. Married at 15, had her first child at 16, had her second child at 17, lost her first child at 18 - she saw more emotional ups and downs in those 4 years than any teenager can handle. To top it all off, she was the Empress of the Hapsburgs' kingdom and had a certain social role to play in political dinners and parties. She couldn't handle all that and became an introvert and reclusive by moving away from the limelight. She suffered another setback in life when her son committed suicide when he was in his early 30s. Obviously, she became depressed and pretty much remained in mourning till her death a few years later. Her most significant political contribution was championing the Hungarian cause. In fact, she played a crucial role in convincing her husband to recognize Hungary and thus it became the Astro-Hungarian Empire. The last section that we saw were the rooms of the Imperial Apartments. They were very similar to the rooms in the Schonbrunn Palace. The most interesting thing that we saw was the exercise equipment in Sisi's room.
After this tour of the Hofburg Palace, we decided that we could also squeeze in the Ring Strasse tram tour that we were unable to complete yesterday. We shared a quick cheeseburger from a stand at the tram stop and then boarded the tram for a trip on the circular ring road around the city of Vienna where the walls of the city used to be located. During the one hour tour, our Rick Steves audio guide pointed out the Opera (opposite our hotel), a line of 5 star hotels, the huge city park with a gilded statue of the "Waltz King" Johann Strauss Junior, an old post office building, the Austrian intelligence department's building and an observatory for King Franz Joseph called Urania. Then the audio guide asked us to get off at a station and change trams. This was the Danube river site where we had dined yesterday. Since we had explored this area yesterday, we quickly caught the next tram to finish the tour. In the second part of the tour, we saw the City Hall, the Austrian Parliament, Vienna's Stock Exchange, University of Vienna, Natural History Museum in the Museums Quartier complex and finally a statue of German poet Schiller in the Academy of Fine Arts.
This statue was adjacent to our hotel and we could see the Academy of Fine Arts building from our room. We got off the tram here and walked to the Lebanese place where we had tried the Schnitzel. This time we ordered their mezzeh platter with different varieties of hummus with meat and also ordered what they had termed biryani. Compared to the Pakistani biryani, it was very different but still very tasteful. After dinner, we hurried to our hotel since we wanted to try and catch the train to Bratislava that left in half an hour at 8:21 pm, instead of waiting for the next one which would've come at 9:21 pm. We picked up our suitcases and took a taxi to the train station. We were there at 8:05 pm and had enough time to purchase the ticket and get on the train. Due to some confusion on my part, I thought the train ride was supposed to be 2 hours but we reached Bratislava in just 70 minutes. Perhaps because this was the hourly regional express whereas I might've confused it with the time taken by the regular non-express train.
Bratislava seems less developed so far. It is the first train station which did not have any elevators, escalators or ramps so I had to carry our two suitcases (weighing 25 and 30 kg) first a flight of stairs down and then a flight of stairs up! Then we took a cab to our hotel.
A note on cab drivers on this trip so far. Apart from the ones in Vienna, every single one of them ripped us off by overcharging. Some of them don't even bother to turn the meter on. The guy today was the most crooked of them all. I caught him manually adding small increments to the metered fare. I was really angry but in all such situations, as tourists, we are vulnerable and not really in a position to argue or do much about it so I just stared at him and kept my eye on the meter from there on, in case he repeated that. He sensed that I was on to his fraudulent scheme so he didn't mess with the meter again. We are getting better though and always ask them up front to give us an estimate. That way, they can't rip us off by too much. For reference, this guy gave us an estimate of 15 euros but since he was messing with the meter, it was showing 20.10. He knew that I suspected something so he told me that was fare was 20. In my mind, I said "no tip for you, buddy" and took all the change back.
We checked-in at our hotel which is really nice. We are staying in Bratislava just tonight. We'll check out tomorrow morning, probably take a quick bus tour of the city and then set off for Budapest before noon.
Some final words about Vienna. It's like the Paris of the Eastern half of Europe. Similarly, Prague is like the Rome of the Eastern half of Europe. Both of these are cities that we wouldn't mind visiting again. Time to get some sleep now. Till the next update from Budapest, take care!
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