More Vienna

After our first proper day in Vienna we had dinner at Kern Beisl, a restaurant that had come recommended from our guidebook.  It was a nice, very traditional place.   

Bryn had roast pork with hand-rolled dumplings and a local beer, and I had weiner schnizel with house wine. 

As soon as our meals had arrived, a man sitting next to us offered to take out photo.  We were grateful since it's difficult to get photos of us together when we are traveling alone!  He chatted with us for a bit before letting us finish our (delicious) meals.  Once we were finished we asked for the bill, and our waiter told us that the man had already paid for our meals!   We were completely stunned...it's not often that you come across kindness like that!  We thanked him and he gave us his card, telling us to look him up if we ever found ourselves in Vienna again.  It's nice to be reminded that there are genuinely kind people in the world.

After dinner, we decided to walk off our meals and go to the big Christmas Market at the Rathaus.  This is the Christmas Market that's on all of the postcards, and the photo that will likely come up if you Google Vienna.  We passed some stunning light displays, shop windows and palaces on the way.

This is a candy shop window...she's made entirely of marzipan!!

That tower in the background was our destination.

Of course our first stop was the punsch stand before wandering the grounds to browse through the many booths selling sweet treats, toys, knick knacks, Christmas ornaments and practically anything else you can think of!

 

It's a crowded market, especially in the evening, but the crowds are completely forgivable with a little help from the Christmas cheer that fills all those mugs!! 

After exploring for a while, we made our way back to the hotel to thaw out and get some rest for the next day.

Vienna, Part 2

Here goes day two!

Our first full day in Vienna started off beautiful - sunny, blue skies but freezing!!  Thanks to the time difference, Bryn and I were up bright and early and after a yummy hotel breakfast (Europe does the BEST breakfasts) we went for a rather chilly stroll through the sleepy cobblestone streets.

It didn't take long for the fog to roll in, but that didn't stop us from walking to the Belvedere Palace where we found a nice little Christmas Market, just in time for a hot drink and some lunch. 

Haha...

We wandered through winding back streets and huge, Christmas light-lined boulevards for the better part of the afternoon.

Vienna is a beautiful city, and it is so easy to picture horse drawn carriages carrying men dressed in fancy suits in ladies in big, billowing dresses!

More pictures to come...stay tuned!

Vienna, Austria, Pt. 1

These photos are LONG overdue!  I posted them on Liz's Scrapbook and had every intention of posting them here as well, but...well, I am lazy.  Anyways, even though they are almost two months late, here they are!!

We arrived in Vienna in the early afternoon.  It was a beautiful day!  Sunny, bright blue skies and cold, cold, cold!

I said it last year, but I'll say it again.  Of all of the places I have visited, Vienna is by far the most tourist-friendly.  Getting from the airport to the city center takes less than 20 minutes and is completely fool proof if you take the CAT (City Airport Train), and everyone, I mean everyone speaks English, and not in a "you stupid Americans refuse to learn another language so I'll speak to you in your's" kind of way.

Once we were checked into the hotel, we set out for a wander.  First and most importantly, lunch in the form of hot dogs, only better!  Juicy bratwurst stuffed into mini loaves of French bread...yum!

We spent the next few hours wandering until it got dark and the Christmas lights came on.  Then we had steaming boot-mugs of gluwein (kinderpunsch for me...sometimes hot apple cider is all you want!) at the Christmas Market at the base of St. Stephens Cathedral.

Exhausted and frozen to the bone, we decided dinner would be bubbly and local pastries (apple strudel, Mozart Torte and Sachertorte)...hey, it's a vacation after all!

More tomorrow...