Enlightening First Sights, Sounds, and Tastes of Vienna

We had long planned to visit Vienna, partly because I had never been there. Our last try was canceled a few years ago due to illness. As with last time, I bought tickets in advance for the Lippizaner stallion show and an orchestral Mozart concert. So we were off to a roaring start, even though getting there was a challenge.

Lippizaner Stallions at the Spanish Riding School

We had seen a similar show several years ago in Jerez, Spain, but the horses and riders were so impressive we wanted to see them again. The Spanish Riding School in Vienna is in the Hofburg Palace, so we passed through the palace on the way to the riding school. In Spain, we sat at the top of the bleachers, but this time we had front-row seats. It was awesome. The horses and riders work together for years before they can perform the complicated maneuvers in the show.

They wouldn’t let us take pictures of the horses doing their thing but you can see that the show ring is very opulent. It even has massive crystal chandeliers for lighting.

Getting Around Vienna

Vienna is one of the easiest cities we have ever gotten around in. There was a tram line a block from our hotel that went directly to the Hofburg Palace, which is really at the center of the in-town tourist attractions. It’s super convenient and really inexpensive. To get further out to Schonbrunn Palace, we had to take a bus to the train but that was easy and cheap too.

While the public transit is good, Vienna is very much a walking city. There is a lot of history in the streets. We learned some on a walking tour through the old town. There is also an animated clock with moving historical characters and it plays music every 15 minutes. There is always a church, too. This one was very ornate on the outside but we decided not to go in.

There is a monument to the victims of the black plague outbreak, as many European cities have. The outbreak occurred in 1679 and is an interesting reminder that plague outbreaks occurred long after the Black Death of the fourteenth century. We also visited Vienna’s Holocaust memorial, not as moving as some of the others we have seen.

Museums

Then there were the museums. I had made a list of places to go before we got there, but Mike was a bit under the weather for the first few days, so we didn’t make it everywhere. But we still saw plenty of palaces and art.

Schonbrunn Palace

Schonbrunn Palace, the summer palace of the Hapsburgs, was one place I didn’t want to miss. It checked all the boxes being a palace and an art museum and it is huge. We actually had to go to Schonbrunn Palace twice because we first chose a day when they were closing early so we arrived too late without a reservation. So, we got tickets and returned the next day. As with most palaces, part of what you are looking at are the spectacular rooms with gold leaf and beautiful paintings on the ceiling. The other part is the actual paintings hanging on the walls and the decorative arts.

Schonbrunn Palace is huge so our visit was an all-day affair. We even took some time to admire the garden after we got through the entire museum. When you visit Vienna, make sure you spend a day at Schonbrunn.

Albertina

The Albertina Museum is in a lovely old building behind the Hofburg Palace. There is an interesting collection of 19th and 20th-century paintings including Chagall, Picasso, and  Monet, this period is my favorite. They also had a special exhibit by Roy Lichtenstein that I know Mike would have enjoyed, but he didn’t go. That is why I only have pictures of the special exhibit, I wanted to show him. This museum isn’t huge, so it will only take you an hour or two to see the whole thing.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum

The Kunsthistorisches Museum turned out to be more of an art museum than anything else. Admittedly, the paintings did show historical accounts. We thoroughly enjoyed the art and the building. The center had a dome and the restaurant was two floors below the dome. We decided to stop and have a snack in the beautiful surroundings.

Hofburg Palace

The Hofburg Palace is the former principal imperial palace of the Habsburg dynasty in Austria. Located in the center of Vienna, it was built in the 13th century and expanded several times afterward. The only thing you can see inside the Hofburg Palace is the Sisi Museum and unfortunately, we ran out of time. The main draw of that museum is to see Queen Elizabeth’s apartments. Her nickname was Sisi, hence the name of the museum.

Mozart Concert in the Golden Hall

Vienna is the ultimate music city, so we were anxious to immerse ourselves. We heard that there was free music in the Museum Quarter in the afternoon of our second day so we headed over to listen. Unfortunately, it was a “fail”. We couldn’t find any music, so we just had dinner.

We did however go to a concert in the Golden Hall of the Musikverein. It was inaugurated in 1870 by Emporer Franz Joseph and is the permanent seat of the Vienna Philharmonics and the main stage of the Vienna Mozart Orchestra. The room itself is famous for its outstanding acoustics. We went to see the Vienna Mozart Orchestra, in period costumes, play Mozart and Strauss. We were treated to some arias as well, a pleasant surprise. It was a very special experience.

We couldn’t get tickets for anything we hadn’t seen at the Opera House so we decided to take a tour. We probably saw more of the building than we would have if we had just seen a production. There are numerous opulently decorated halls, now used for intermission, and a grand marble staircase that survived the war.

What We Ate

We had determined the last time we went to Germany that I didn’t like German food in general. My dislike increased greatly as we traveled east but I’ll leave that for another article. There are a few things that I really do like, spaetzle in particular. I’ll also eat schnitzel, but mostly it is made of pork, not chicken and I don’t like a strong piggy taste. Finally, of course, I like strudel. One night I even had strudel for dinner. But I don’t eat much anyway so it wasn’t a really big problem. So, if I am hungry, we usually go for Italian.

Conversely, Mike loves the food there, mostly big hunks of pork and sausage. We both agreed that the best dish we had in a week in Vienna was cheese spaetzle. I had ordered it for dinner and we both wound up having some, then Mike finished what we brought home for breakfast the next day. Then there are the Mozart chocolate candies, unfortunately, we only managed to get one with real marzipan.

Aside from the concert tickets, food, and entrance fees were quite modest. I guess that goes with the low rental prices and the most livable city in the world. It was a pleasant surprise.

After a while, we were curious about the Danube River. Apparently, over the centuries, the Danube moved away from Vienna. In the late 1800s, a channel was cut for the main river a few kilometers away from the city center. In our travels around the city, we never saw the river but they assured us it was actually there, somewhere.

What do you want to see in Vienna?