Everyone has a bucket list of places that they want to go to on holiday and one of mine has always been Austria, I really want to go to Salzburg so I can go on the Sound of Music tour but when Michael found cheap flights to Vienna which is on the other side of Austria I knew I couldn't turn the opportunity to tick it off my bucket list.
Austria is located in Central Europe with Vienna located to the east of Austria and is famous for it's cultural events, its imperial sights, coffee houses and the Viennese charm. With tonnes of history throughout the city with Imperial Palaces, baroque building located all over the city and beautiful gardens on your doorstep its a tourist heaven.
Monday was out first day and was maybe one of the most beautiful days when it came to weather. We went to Vienna with a bit of a plan nothing huge but a few places we knew we wanted to see. Monday we ticked off one of the places that was on my list which was the Stephansdom which is one of Vienna's most prominent Gothic Cathedrals. Ever since I went Wroclaw in Poland I kind of fell in love with looking at cathedrals, so when I go to a new city in Europe I have to check out the cathedrals they have so much history behind them and they are some of the most beautiful building to be created in a lot of cities. Stephansdom didn't let me down it was beautiful inside and with holy mass being held while we were there the atmosphere was amazing. Back outside Michael attempted his best King Kong impression!
After checking out Stephansdom and climbing to
the top of the tower to check out the view of Vienna (which is beautiful to see) which cost us €4.50 for us this was the opportunity to spot out where we wanted to go and it was great to see the city from the sky. We decided to head towards the Hofburg Palace, I'm pretty sure Vienna is known for its stunning palaces, The Hofburg Palace is 1 of 3 main palaces in Vienna it is the former imperial palace and was home for the Hasburg dynasty and is now home to the President of Austria and lets just say this place is big. We decided to go for the Sisi-Museum and Silver Collection Tour, this cost us €13.90 each which I think is reasonable for the amount you get to see. The Sisi Museum was definitely something I won't forget, the exhibition has personal belonging of Sisi and the myths behind the Empress as well discussing here assassination, when you enter you get giving a little audio speaker which goes into dept all through out the museum. I'm a massive history junkie so I was in my element.
Vienna was hot while we were there on Monday it was 24 degree if not hotter. Michael had heard that the MuseumQuartier (Museum Quarter) was the place to relax and get some ice cream, so we headed up there. The MuseumQuartier was originally the imperial stables and now hosts 10 different museums ranging from kids museums to Theatre. In the MuseumQuartier we found a great little ice cream stall where you could buy maybe the nicest ice cream ever which was from Biosk. We decided to chill there for a bit before heading up to see something that Michael was really interested in seeing.
Vienna has 6 Flakturm which are above ground anti-aircraft gun blockhouse towers which were built around 1943-44 by the Nazis. These are dotted around the city in pairs and not been used since the end of the Second World War but Michael had found that one of these had been cleverly redeveloped into an Aquarium (Hans Des Meeres) and that you were able to go to the top for €5 (you do have to put a €10 deposit down for the keys) and again the views from here were amazing. This isn't one of them attractions that is huge with tourist so was quiet and great for taking pictures.
After a long day of discovering Vienna we decided to head back to our AirBnB which was located not to far from the city centre. Our AirBnB host gave use some great recommendation to get something to eat including Figlmuller which is well known for selling traditional Schnitzel (I'm going to talk about food in a different post so click here to find out more) it was on the pricey side but was highly recommended and it is very well known in Vienna. A lot of bars were closed because it was a national holiday but we found Roberto American Bar before heading back to our apartment to relax ready for our second day exploring Vienna...
