Wien

We (Caitie, James, Jason, and I) left for Vienna on Tuesday morning around 10:30a by way of Student Agency bus. Student Agency busses are one of the cheapest ways to travel around Europe. We had a 2 hour bus ride to Brno, and had to switch busses in Brno to get to Vienna. From Brno to Vienna we had another 2 and a half hours almost, and drove through Mikulov, which is a really small Czech town that I had visited the first weekend in the Czech Republic. There were also some really beautiful wind farms on the way. Once we arrived in Vienna we bought metro passes, after a little trouble figuring out how to buy them, and made our way to the hostel to check in. By the time we had done all of that it was time for an early dinner because we hadn’t ate all day. We made our way to the city center and started wandering around for something delicious. Jason spotted a steak place, that was obviously very American-ized, but we definitely didn’t care because a steak and baked potato sounded AMAZING. We proceeded to eat there, ordering a French baguette, side salads, and a bottle of merlot for the four of us, and steaks and baked potatoes. It was the most amazing meal I have had in a long time, at least the most amazing meal of food that I am used to. After dinner we were exhausted so we just walked around the city center a little bit, passing by the State Opera House and the House of the Secession. We went back to the hostel to plan out our sightseeing for the next two days, and headed to sleep before midnight.

State Opera House.

House of the Secession.

The next morning we woke up pretty early and got ready for our day, and ate breakfast at the hostel. We headed out to see the sights, and we saw quite a lot of Vienna that is for sure. We started out by trying to go to the Schonbrunn Palace, but couldn’t figure out where it was from the metro, so we decided to head towards the Museums Quarter and go to the modern art museum. All of the museums in Vienna are in this pretty large area of town all really close to each other, it is actually pretty cool. 

The Museum of Modern Art. Or the Museum Moderner Kunst (MUMOK) in Deutsch.

The modern was so amazing, the art as well as the architecture of the building were all worth looking at for quite awhile. We spent a large portion of our day here perusing and enjoying new art and artists, while seeing some of our favorites as well. After the museum we decided to go find a late lunch. Tuesday night when we were walking around we found an open air market, so we headed back there in search of some typical Viennese food. We found a small restaurant in the market and all got some Austrian beer and Wiener Schnitzel. Then we decided to find a dessert and found a delicious bakery, I decided on a chocolate croissant and it was amazingly good.

After lunch we had a slight problem of finding a place to buy our bus tickets home, we assumed we could buy them at the place we got dropped off, but no such luck. We had to exert our resources in Prague, and call Michal and have him help us find the place to buy them. He is our saving grace when we are traveling. Luckily we got bus tickets, but had to leave earlier on Thursday than originally expected so our trip was cut a little bit shorter than we wanted, but no problems. 

This is a cool mirror installation we found in one of the metro stations, it had the number of pi etched into it that stretched for a long while. We spent a little of time taking goofy pictures.

After we got the bus fiasco figured out we headed to St. Stephens Cathedral to climb the spire. There are 343 steps going up the spire all in a very tight spiral staircase. It was quite the workout, and was very nauseating, but it was definitely worth the view once we reached the top.

 

View from the top of the spire.

After St. Stephens we wondered around the town some more, coming upon what we thought was the National Library, but then realized after walking all the way around it, it was the State Opera House that we had seen the night before. We decided to find the National Library the next morning, and headed for dinner and a beer. We ate at a quaint little restaurant close to the city center, and then headed to a little pub for a few more beers. It was a fun evening spent in the pub, and then we headed home quite early so we could take the metro.

The next morning, our last day there we awoke, ate breakfast, and checked out of the hostel by about 9a. We then went to find the actual National Library, and succeeded, although it was rainy and gross outside, so we didn’t stick around for very long. By that time it was almost time to catch our bus so we found a Subway (I can't believe they have them in Europe), and got sandwiches for the road, then headed to the bus station. We boarded the bus around 11:30a and began our almost 5 hour journey home, again passing the beautiful wind farm, and finally making it back to Prague and to our dorm by 5p.

Wind farm we passed somewhere close to the Austria/Czech border.

More pictures from Vienna.