Wien: grandeur at every turn

Habsburg palace complex with ornate, baroque interiors, imperial apartments & a silver museum.

We leave the city of 100 steeples after 6 night with terrific impressions and plentiful memories; a total love of Prague & a place that we would come back to again.

It takes no time to leave the city & urban scenery and replace it with skeletal trees that would look stunning once full foliage returned in a couple of months; but we'll have to make do with what we're given.

The train-side villages, pastures & hills speed by with rural/commercial ventures dotted around. Pastures are lush green or just-toiled in a rusty brown, awaiting a good watering. This makes the countryside look harsher than it really is.

What look like paperbark trees frequent the sides of the streams that edge the tracks on one side, but it’s hard to confirm at 150kph. Ghost trees with taloned branches wave ever so slightly clutching at the carriages as they stand, waiting for 'refoliation' to commence again. Bird nests look like Czech winter fur hats stuck in branches of the nude trees.

1st stop is Pardubice nearly 1 hour into our trip. Field allotments appear to be portion off to the locals who cultivate & grow crops to help feed their families & villages, each with their own small sheds nearby.

Ceska Trebova 2nd stop & Brno the 3rd stop, a larger town with apartment towers mixed with forests, hills and some trees with greenery, a rare sight, some big chimneys; this is obviously a working town, industrial. 

Generally it’s a pretty monotone landscape only enlightened by villages dappled in Czech pale-sand coloured houses instead of German white.

A blood red sun greets us into Breclav just before the Austrian border. The train hadn’t been through a train wash for the last decade so unfortunately photos were taken by memory only.

We continue across the River Dyle via a wide bridge and soon we are pulling into Vienna (Wien). It's dark when we arrive so everything is a mystery for tomorrow to be solved, some drinks from reception and off to our room & bed.

The view from our room overlooking St.Stephens Cathedral, to the west & some of the hotels & attractions to the north

Tickets were purchased on-line, and even with a couple of self-inflicted Uber hiccups, we eventually grabbed a taxi & headed to our destination: the Schönbrunn Palace, the No. 1 sight in Vienna, the crowds reinforcing this fact.

The Palace is huge, though not compared to Catherine Palace however, outside St Petersburg, Russia, which is truly enormous and insanely opulent and beautiful. But that's another blog I have to write yet, soon.

Our guide took us through the throng at the front door and upstairs to the small section of the Palace that we were going to view, like everyone else who were stalking us throughout the tour. It's quite an amazing Palace, worth seeing but be wary of the crowds. It was amazing but Catherine Palace kept returning to my mind as a comparison.

Every ornament, scroll, ceiling feature was covered with gold leaf making it look even more wealthy than what it was. This was done to show wealth & power over potential invaders or interlopers. Huge painting depicting important events lined the walls. Interestingly, each important work made sure that everyone who was in the painting (and I mean everyone) was listed at the base with a corresponding number, see in photo slideshow above, quite remarkable really.

We made our way outside as we were feeling a bit claustrophobic and faint due to the complete lack of fresh air in the Palace, to the gardens, which were vast.

Spring is just coming through and the 60 (yes 60) full-time gardeners were busy planting and maintaining the gardens in time for the summer schedule of events staged at the Palace.

Interesting Note: Every tree, not only in the Palace Gardens, but throughout Vienna city property is maintained in a comprehensive tree registry and cadastre (Baumkataster) that tags over 100,000 trees with unique, physical identification numbers, often via small plaques. So you can be walking along and see a small metal tag attached to a tree, then go into the registry and find out all about it, see right.

Everything within the Palace complex had a cost attached to it if you wanted to see more. I had made a note to see the The Palmenhaus (Palm house) the renowned, historic 19th-century greenhouse in the gardens, the biggest greenhouse in Europe and one of the world's largest. Opened in 1882, featuring three climate zones (tropical, temperate, and cold) it houses over 4,500 species of plants in a massive, 111-meter-long glass-and-iron structure. The structure is truly awe-inspiring.

Laid out at the same time, the Palm House Garden, with its sunken lawns topiary & pair of fountains surrounded by ornamental flower beds, is a typical example of Historicist garden design that here, took its inspiration from the Baroque.

Leaving the Palm House behind we made our way to the gate and found a taxi, with a lovely driver, who guided our way with commentary, back through Vienna to our hotel for the afternoon recharge.

A couple of hours later we walked down our street and found a lovely looking cafe, the Cafe Schwarzenberg, 'since 1861' it proudly displays on it's windows. Tables are nearly complete outside but we manage to grab one of the few available & order a 'waiter recommended' dry white for Mandy & a soft drink for me.

Situated on a major intersection of Parkring, Schubertring, Karntering & Schwarzenbergstrade, the traffic, pedestrians, trams, delivery riders & enthusiasts on bicycles seem to do an intertwining dance destined for damage but somehow managing to miss each other by millimetres. It was total chaos on the streets!

People finished their drinks and left while we decided to stay for dinner, so we moved inside to a pre-arranged table, thanks to our waiter.

As distinct from the Pork schnitzels in Prague, the true & authentic Veal Schnitzel was at the fore: light, fluffy & melt-in-your-mouth tender, astonishingly delicious. I think it's the space between the veal and the outside bread-crumbed coating that makes the difference. Nonetheless, sensational!!!!

I had to opt for the Apple strudel & ice cream as a desert, though I’m now scared to go near scales. Double dose of diabetes tablets tonight, but if I don’t test myself I’ll never know.

The cafe was packed, waiters in formal wear, beautiful decoration that hark back to 1861, very special. A required stroll back to hotel and that was the end of our first full day in Vienna; terrific.

A lazy start to the following day, didn't venture out until around midday, then walked for 30-40 minutes to get us the the MuseumsQuartier & the mumok: Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, Central Europe's largest museum for modern and contemporary art.

With featured artists such as Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso & Roy Lichtenstein, it was an instant attraction for me. Tickets purchased & a lift to the top floor, we made our way downwards only to find out that all three of the reasons that we were there were "not on show at this time". Heading directly out of the mumok, we saw a cafe adjacent where we sat down, disheartened. A waiter approached, and given my temperament at that time, if he or someone ever again offers me an Earl Grey, as a cup of tea, instead of a very strong English Breakfast or black tea, there could've been screams of admonishment followed by a potential crime scene.

Instead, we made our way across the road into the Maria Theresien Plaza, with its mirror-image buildings and gardens. The Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History Museum) on one side and the Naturhistorisches Museum Vienna (Natural History Museum) on the other. Walking across the next road led us to the Heldenplatz with the Hofburg Palace, one of the biggest palace complexes in the world: Formerly the residence of the imperial family, today a hotspot for museums, politics, and events.

Meandering through the streets we come across the, obviously, main shopping district

and hordes of people. We soldier on until we make it to St.Stephens, stick our heads inside to marvel at the architecture then stroll down a road until we make it back to the hotel.

St.Stephens mosaic tiled roof & inside

Ambling in reverse route, we tried to find an Italian restaurant to have some pre-dinner drinks the dinner. The first one told us that we couldn't drink outside as the area was closed but we couldn't eat inside because it was booked out; go figure. So we headed across the road then walked 100 metres further and took our seats at a great little Italian/pizzeria, Trattoria Spaccanapoli, great food then home to bed, great days walking!

Today, Sunday, we had another very lazy morning until late morning when we decided to go for a walk around town. We managed to amble about 7kms around empty streets, shops are mainly closed on Sundays, until we decided to head to a steak restaurant we noticed last night, The Porterhouse. Both of us ordering rib eyes; outstanding! They were first presented them far too rare but upon return they were spectacular, probably the best meal we have had for the entire trip. Lovely waiter, the owner we assume was fantastic. If you are ever in Vienna you must go to this restaurant.

Needing a rest after the late lunch, we headed home and had an afternoon rest. Packing is the task for the rest of the day as we head to Salzburg tomorrow morning, more from there.