After lunch we set off to check out the area. Vienna is a pretty good size city, the main shopping street which is a pedestrian only road has high end designer stores. We didn't buy anything but walked through and did some glancing. In the center of the city is St. Stephen's Cathedral. This is the church where Mozart married in 1782.
Had to get the picture below real quick as we were walking and saw these two dogs getting pushed around! Too funny and cute! :)
For a mid afternoon dessert treat we stopped at Hotel Sacher to share a piece of their famous Sacher Torte. In 1832 the official recipe was discovered by chance when an apprentice chef Franz Sacher had to stand in to prepare dessert for high ranking guests since the original chef became ill. Everyone fell in love with the recipe and it had become famous ever since. The original recipe which is still used today has been passed down through many generations is kept in a safe at the hotel which very few staff have been privileged to view.
After our treat we did some more walking around.
Below is the Hofburg Palace which is the official home to the Austrian President. Near the Hofburg Palace were some beautiful gardens and in the picture below which I am in you can see the Rathaus (Town Hall building) in the distance...
Below is close up to the Town Hall...
The neo-gothic Votive Church built in 1879 is below on the left and on the right is the Parliament building...
Since Mozart composed many of his best known symphonies and other pieces of work in Vienna it is very popular to attend a concert while visiting there. I had been recommended to do this from someone before going so we decided to buy tickets to see a symphony orchestra concert while we were there.
The show involved a 25 person orchestra and featured Mozart and Strauss masterpieces. The concert was held at the Schonbrunn Palace which is a 1441 room former imperial palace residence. Mozart liked to play here in 1700's. We expected a little more from the concert...it was basically held in a banquet room versus a concert hall which we were expecting. We found out later that we should have actually bought tickets for the Opera House to see a much better similar show. We enjoyed the music and trying to do something cultural however we may or may have not left at the intermission......??? (One of our favorite parts was watching the Asian tour group sitting in front of us and at least 9 of them slumped over dosing off sleeping before the show even started!) Here are some pictures of us before the concert checking out the Palace and the grounds.
Turns out one of our favorite TV Shows The Amazing Race had a pit stop here in one of the recent seasons. Below Brian is walking in the hedge bush maze around the outside of the gardens. On the show teams had to find their way through the maze in order to reach the end of the race.
Pretty water fountain...
The next morning we did some more wandering and exploring the city.
Below is the Belvedere Palace. This was an imperial capital at one time.
Next we decided to get outside of the city a bit and took a bus to Grinzing which is a wine region just on the outskirts of Vienna. It was a very cute little village...
We made two stops at wine bars to try out some of the local white wine.
It was fun to see some vineyards and even some small grapes starting to grow.
From Grinzing we took the bus a little further up into the hillside to Kahlenberg where we had excellent panoramic views back down on the city of Vienna.
We really enjoyed Vienna and the next morning we left for Prague which was our final stop of our 10 day Eastern European adventure. Separate blog post coming on that leg of our trip!
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