Our friends the Wares proposed the idea a few months ago of doing a babysitting swap and each taking a weekend to go somewhere while the other couple watched our kids. With the baby coming, we figured we wouldn’t have many options to get away so when we saw a deal on flights out of Luxembourg, we decided to go for the swap and take a trip to Vienna. We flew out early on a Friday morning and after checking into our hotel, made our way downtown.
We started at St. Stephens Cathedral, where we walked through the inside, then chose the south tower to ascend since it was taller. Also, it had 343 steps (the north tower has an elevator). Climbing that many circular steps reminded me that I was 7 months pregnant and not in great shape. There were great views from the top of the city and of the Cathedral’s roof, where colorful roof tiles made the shape of the Royal and Imperial double-headed eagle and the coat of arms of the city of Vienna. From the top, we also spotted a Cinnabon across the street and decided a cinnamon roll would make the perfect mid-morning snack. It did.
After St. Stephens, we had a couple hours until the next item on our agenda – a tour of the opera house – so we walked around the “ring”, the street that encircles the part of town that used to be all there was of Vienna. We made it to the canal, around to the Parliament Building and past the Rathaus (town hall), then walked towards the opera house.
I was excited to find somewhere to fill up my water bottle. Even better that it was an old school water pump!
The opera house was amazing! The tour was great – some history, some architecture, and a view of the stage all opened up while they were setting up the set for that night.
opera house dorks, and the main stairway in the entry of the opera house
After the opera house, we went back to our hotel and relaxed for a bit – mostly so I would have a chance to sit down and put my feet up. A friend of mine from home has lived in Vienna with his wife & kids for 4+ years, and we met them for dinner at an authentic Viennese restaurant that night. I tried the Wiener Schnitzel, and Nate had some sort of steak with fried onions on it. (if you didn’t know, Wiener Schnitzel is the national dish of Austria, and Vienna is actually Wien in German (but in English we say Vienna). We went back to their apartment afterwards and had fun catching up, hearing about their European adventures, and swapping expat stories. We learned that some of the random challenges we face in Luxembourg and things we have found “weird” are not just unique to Luxembourg but more widely spread across Europe (or at least the parts with Germanic influence). After leaving the Morgans’, we decided to walk back downtown and see some of the city at night before crashing back at our hotel.
Saturday was filled with 2 things: snow and palaces.
Palace 1: Schoenbrunn. Originally built as a palatial hunting lodge, it is a little ways outside of town and has really pretty gardens and large grounds. We enjoyed taking our time through the palace without kids while our audio guides told us about the history of the palace, the Habsburg family, and Austria. We had heard great things about the gardens, so we went behind the palace and trekked through the snow up the hill to the “Gloriette”. There were supposed to be great views up there, but the snow made it so we could barely even see the palace. It was at least quiet and peaceful with the falling snow.
After touring the palace, we rode the subway back downtown and found lunch, then walked through the Naschmarkt, which has a variety of restaurants and food stalls with food from around the world.
Palace 2: Belvedere. The Belvedere Palace was built as a winter palace and is now a museum. It was fun to go through the palace since we could see the palace grounds from our hotel window. There were several paintings by Gustav Klimt, a famous Austrian painter. The most well-known painting is The Kiss – they wouldn’t let you take pictures of the original painting but had a large reproduction to take pics with.
After another short break at the hotel, we headed out for the night. We found a fun little Italian restaurant for dinner, stopped and picked up some of the famous Sacher Tortes from the Sacher hotel to eat later, and made our way to our concert. The concert was in a “palace” and very touristy, but still fun. The orchestra played mostly songs we would recognize from Mozart and Strauss (both Viennese composers) and there were a few songs with ballet dancers, waltzers and opera singers. We went for a little walk through the snow after the concert.
On Sunday morning, it had finally warmed up and almost all the snow had melted. Unfortunately, we just had a couple of hours Sunday morning to enjoy the weather before we had to catch our flight. We went back to the Rathaus and the Hofburg Palace - the Rathaus had a pretty amazing ice skating rink on the plaza in front of it – there were several large rinks, and paths running between them.
on the right: Nate with our breakfast – Viennese pastries – the letters are for the filling in the donuts - A for Apfel (apple) and E for Erdbeer (Strawberry)
We saw several of these retro-style scales in the city – I’m not sure what the story is, but we decided it was worth the 20 cents to give it a try.
As we finished eating our lunch on a bench in the pedestrian area, we saw (and heard) a band coming by. We didn’t ever figure out what the occasion was, but there was a pretty impressive parade with people dressed up in traditional outfits, band members, and people carrying old-school (and scary!) weapons. Random, but interesting.
We thoroughly enjoyed our weekend away in Vienna. We checked in on the kids several times and the Wares made having 3 extra kids look easy! Eliza was the one I was the most worried about, but she went to sleep for naps and bedtime and was easily consoled the few times she did get sad about us being gone. We decided traveling without kids is a lot easier! I love showing them new places and seeing their excitement, but it was also really nice to feel free for a weekend – to not be dealing with strollers and snacks and water bottles and whining. And to be able to go out late at night and enjoy a sit-down meal at a restaurant. It was the perfect amount of time – we were ready to go back to the kids and missed them, but really enjoyed our vacation!
