Vienna

We arrived in Vienna in the early afternoon to bright sunny skies. An easy hotel check in was followed by lunch right around the corner at a Japanese ramen bar. It was awesome! Then a stroll around the east end of the city to see the sights; Vienna’s oldest church, Vienna’s largest church, a mechanical clock, a public park filled with music (wonderful). Still quite full from lunch, supper was snacks in our room as we planned our strategy for the next day.

The next day was even brighter and warmer. It was a full walking day to see the west end of the city. We visited two fantastic museums (the Belvedere and the Leopold) to expand our minds, especially on Klimt, Schielle and Oppenheimer who were all contemporaries in the early 1900s. We strolled past the baroque Hofburg palace, the Temple of Theseus, through the Volksgarten (the roses were lovely) and into the gothic Votivkirche. The glass there is something else but the surprise was an ongoing free music concert. The church was packed making it difficult to get shots of all the windows but the music was great and familiar (James Taylor, Beetles, Fleetwood Mac). With worn out feet, we Ubered back to our hotel and had supper close by at an Italian restaurant.

Vienna surprised me. While the inner core offered the expected elegance of fountains and monuments, glorious architecture and peaceful parks, the outer fringes of the city are bustling with noisy construction amid the skyscrapers. Progress, I suppose, is inevitable. Overall, Vienna was enchanting and I took nearly 500 photos in 24 hrs! (mostly in the museums). I whittled those down to 50+ for this post.

Here are the highlights of our time in Vienna.