Vienna- Day 1

We just finished our first day in Vienna. It's great being here, but the weather is bad. It rained nonstop all day. But did that stop us from seeing everything we wanted to and enjoying ourselves? Of course not.

I cant upload pictures from this computer, but maybe Ill find somewhere to do it someday soon... Im getting really behind and its bugging me.

The train ride from Bratislava was a quick 1 hour. Apparently Vienna and Bratislava are the closest capitols in Europe, at only 60 km apart. We got to the hostel without any problems, then set out in the rain to explore Vienna.

We started at Naschmarkt, a big outdoor market along a wide boulevard. We got lunch there (I got a spinach strudel thing and an orange), then we bought a bag of toffee/fudge stuff to split. That got us through our rainy day.

Naschmarkt:

After Naschmarkt we saw the outside of the opera house, which is pretty incredible. We're going to try to get standby tickets for tomorrow night's performance of Rigoletto, which should be pretty incredible. Standby tickets are only a couple euro so hopefully we can get them! It means waiting in line 2 hours ahead of the performance for standing room only tickets, but it would be totally worth it to see an opera in Vienna.

Our next stop was Stephansdom, the cathedral. A typical, beautiful European cathedral.

Stephansdom:

Next we decided to head indoors, because we were pretty soggy. We went to the Hofburg Palace and did the audio guide which took us through everything, including the silver collection, the Sisi Museum, and the royal apartments. What an impressive place! The dishes and silver collections were incredible, and I learned a lot about the Hapsburgs and stuff, so it was a great way to spend a few hours. It was incredibly opulent and fascinating.

Hofburg Palace:

A few centerpieces:

Next we went to a cafe to buy Sachertorte, a famous Viennese cake (chocolate and apricot). We ate it in Starbucks because we needed a place to sit and warm drinks... The cake was awesome!

Sachertorte:

Feeling refreshed, we decided to tackle the outdoors again, so we went to the Belvedere palaces and gardens. The palaces are now museums so we didnt do those, but we walked around the gardens. The palaces, along with all the other buildings in Vienna, are really beautiful. The architecture around here is incredible, I just wish we were seeing it in sunlight so we could enjoy it a little more...

Hochstrahlbrunnen Fountain:

Belvedere Palace:

We went back to our hostel for a few mintues after that to dry off a bit and get our stuff organized, then we went back to the city center for a quick dinner, then a concert. We figured we'd better see a concert since Vienna is basically the center of classical music. The concert we went to was in Palais Palffy, were Mozart once performed. There was a small orchastra, then for some of the songs there was an opera singer, and for others ballet dancers. So we got a taste of everything and it was a very nice way to spend the evening.

Tomorrow we're going to Schonbrunn Palace (looks awesome) and the Kunsthistoriches museum (apparently one of the top museums in the world). After that, depnding on the weather, we want to go to the famous ferris wheel in Prater park, then we're going to the opera!