Vienna

Written by Ben on July 11, 2006 |

Vienna has some rich history and is packed with tourist sites (all within walking distance of each other). But the time I spent here did not reflect an average tourist’s trip, which would’ve ran through the entire list of things to see & do; instead, I mixed my time between laundry, CouchSurfing stuff, and site-seeing.

I arrived on the evening of July 2nd into a somewhat rainy city. I had directions to where my host lived, but had no clue where to go because his street did not show up on the list of Tram stops– the maps I had did not go into great detail and this put me at a loss. After much unease, I ended up, with the help of a Viennese local who happened to be on my train, in the general vicinity (district) of my host’s home. (I was surprised to see so many other Asians in this city who all acted/looked as locals, they probably were). I then popped into an Italian restaurant where I got more specific directions and was able to walk the last 500 meters to my host’s home. His CouchSurfing strategy meeting– the CouchSurfing website was down, and it claimed to be down for good– was still in session so I joined in and met a few more CSers for the productive night.

But the next day was shot; I spent my entire day working out plans for the rest of my trip, doing laundry, and contacting people about CouchSurfing– surfing the web here and there . So my first real day in Vienna was on July 4th and it was a very sunny day. I didn’t do anything to celebrate the holiday, I just toured the city. My tour began with a tram ride around the city center. I got on the #2 tram at the Opera (pictured: front and back), which travels counter-clockwise, for the ride and eased my way into knowing the city.

My 72 hour transportation pass– this time I double-checked the timestamp in case I ran into any transportation controllers– allowed me to hop on and off at any stop. So when I saw some interesting activity over in the Rathaus Plaza, I got off and checked it out. It turned out that I arrived in time for a summer outdoor film festival. Huge rows of chairs were lined up in front of the city hall where a huge theatre screen had been erected. The walkway leading up to the plaza was lined up with vendors selling all different kinds of ethnic foods. I paid an overpriced sum for a light snack and I sat by a streetside fountain; I relaxed for a couple of hours. It was lunch time (a late one at that) and I took the time to catch up on writing in my travel journal. I would have loved to say it was relaxing, but I had been putting myself under great pressure to write volumes… so I’d say it was only partly relaxing.

Afterwards, instead of jumping back onto the tram, I walked passed the Parliament Building (unpictured) to the Museum Quarter where I spent four and a half hours in the Kunsthistorishes Museum looking through the old Habsburg family’s collection. The museum looked like it was once a palace for a royal family, but it was actually built specifically to be a museum. I quite enjoyed the different works on display: Ancient Egyptian artifacts, Ancient Greek artifacts, French art, Italian arts, and Dutch arts… I saw it all, and I think I enjoyed the experience more than the overcrowded Louvre.

Then I walked just across the street to visit the Hofburg palace, a complex that looks much larger than it actually is. I felt that the courtyards I ducked in & out of were more interesting than the grand facades which adorned the main entrances of the palace, they give one a sense that the place was actually a lived-in home.

So after a walk around the palace, and a leisurely stroll through the busy pedestrian streets to the St. Stephan’s Cathedral (unpictured), I got a call (on a lent mobile phone) to meet in the northern part of the city. CouchSurfer party! We met by the Danube river and had some very good gelato. The long lines to the store did not lie, the ice cream was indeed very rich and creamy. My only complaint was that the portions were too small. After the ice cream, we walked over to the tiny Danube island and sat talking at an outdoor beach bar. The funny thing is that the island is man-made and the beach-sand was actually imported in from the Adriatic. After time on the island, we set out to catch the evening’s film back at the Rathaus Plaza. We sat, actually skipping the movie, and had a late night dinner.

The following few days were a blur of more work on the computer and a final round about the city to catch things that I missed. I didn’t even catch them all. I also have lack pictures to show because of museum policies: the Mozart exhibition forbade it completely and it was too dark in the overcrowded Hofburg Treasury (no flash photography). Speaking of which, the Mozart life exhibition was shown– this year being his 250th– at the Albertina museum and it was a very big disappointment for me; it was down right awful. What I really wanted to see was the Albertina’s more “permanent” collection, but they had pulled the masterpieces out of circulation for Mozart.

And that was my time in Vienna. The one thing about this place is that I’ll definitely have something to do when I go back… It’s a small-ish city, but is packed with things to do. The next time I’m there, which should be soonish, the Schonbrunn Palace and the Lipizzaner horses will top my list of things to do.

Overall, I think I quite enjoyed my time in the city.

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