Ooooh, Vienna!

So my time spent in Nuremberg has come to an end but then it was off for adventures around Europe in my little red car and blonde buddy in tow.

First stop: Vienna.

This trip was pretty action-packed as we only had 1.5 days and it’s quite a big city to get around on foot.

Day 1: Our hostel was just outside the old town near the Freud Museum, we walked around looking for breakfast but the whole city was eerily quiet at 9am on a Saturday- never did find out why.

Accidentally breakfasted at a really expensive and touristy place (we didn’t realise St Stephens’ church was about 50m away). Anyway found the church which has an incredible tiled roof and is very impressive, apparently you can walk up the tower but it sounded like an awful lot of stairs.

On the same square is Mozart’s House where he lived in his most lucrative years. The museum was really interesting and the audio guide was informative about his life, works and friends/family. If in Austria, sample is name-sake chocolate the ‘Mozart Kugeln’- I didn’t care for it…

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After this we walked to the Museum Quarter which is a really nice district. We didn’t go to any museums because the weather was so good but here you could see works from Klimt and Schiele. We had lunch at a pop-up film festival near Parliament (I chose falafel but was just given a plate of hummus)

Reeking of garlic we went in search of the Hofburg Palace. We walked around for about an hour before realising that we had been there the whole time. Don’t expect a Buckingham-like building its actually lots of courtyards and separate buildings which includes the Spanish Riding School.

Walking away thinking the Hofburg palace was a bit of a disappointment, we then went to the Naschmarkt which is a famous food market in Vienna. Stopped for a hard-earned ice cream where the vendor tried to convince Laura that a bog standard vanilla ice cream actually had the flavour of ‘Sheep’s Milk Where The Animal Was Fed Gold And Farted Rainbows’ or something like that.

Back to the hostel to freshen up and we took a bottle of wine down to the canal to publicly drink in open spaces without the risk of getting arrested and ate pizza at a pop-up restaurant.

Day 2:

We had half a day before driving on to Budapest so we headed to the Schonbrunn Palace. Unlike Hofburg this actually LOOKS like a palace so we were instantly more satisfied with this. Quite an ordeal inside trying to acquire the right tickets but once done the audio guide is really interesting and there is a lot to see inside the palace.

The basic ticket also lets you go to the Orangerie and the Gloriette. Firstly; the Orangerie. Now my friends if you are the sort of bumbling-minded fellow who walks into an Orangerie thinking you will be sighting some first-class specimens of that particular fruit, you and I are of the same pod. I walked through that barrier with this face: Full of hope and excitement akin to that of a child at Christmas.

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And alas this face of excitement soon disappeared as there are NO oranges in the Orangerie, not even a pip can be found in the ‘Citron House’. So if you are coming to Vienna in a pilgrimage for Oranges, the Schonbrunn Palace Orangerie does not contain your Holy Grail. But do not despair! Oranges can be found in the Private garden..

The grounds behind the palace are great to walk through- it’s quite vast and very well kept. Tree-lined walkways lead you slowly through Roman ruins and fountains and up to the Gloriette (big stone arch thing) which gives a great view.