Mainly to boast that we are here - first time- and what a lovely place that it seems to be. Fair enough, we have only been here a few hours but it is nice to get away from the constant traffic and horn blowing in Paris.
And we have seen so much culture! In other words we found a nice pub a few blocks away and had a few beers for my wife’s birthday- yeah I get a trip to the local club).
Bottom line is we have a superb central hotel and have a week to enjoy the sights.
If you have any recommendations we would be pleased to hear them. (I am not into opera).
Wunderbar! Vienna is one of my favorite cities. I was there in 2004 to see the Transit of Venus. Be sure to see the art (not just paintings) of Gustav Klimt. I think my hotel was on the Habsburgergasse.
If you’re into music at all, head for the “Haus der Musik”. Lots of interactive stuff.
And I assume I don’t have to tell you about all the wonderful pastries.
Actually it does, as we speak I am on my way to Austria for a skiing holiday, I’ll be few hours west of you tomorrow but I’ll sure to tip my Schnitzel to you when we get there.
Years ago, there was a rib place right on the Danube. In fact, part of the dining area is on floating structures. Excellent dry rub ribs. And of course you can’t go wrong with Wienerschitzel at local pubs. The tram will take you up into the hills to a small church that is interesting or out to the Prater.
Don’t forget the simple, touristy stuff. Visit the Prater, wander around the nice little park and see what’s open in the Wurstelprater (I went in the summer, but some things are year-round) and, generally, don’t think you have to make every part of your trip a high cultural experience. Plus, it’s right by the main U-Bahn and train station, so if you’re using public transit at all (which you should be) you’ll be in and out of the area all the time.
Back to culture, Kunsthalle Wien has some very interesting contemporary art exhibitions: http://www.kunsthallewien.at/#/en I enjoyed it when I was there last.
I’m a fan of the KunstHaus (how many things starting with “Kunst” can we find in Vienna?) Dude whose work it is was a bit of a hippy, which is not what we necessarily associate with Austrians, generally!
There’s a great interactive history museum somewhere too, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it’s called.
I went to the Science and Technical Museum there and quite liked it. They had a machine there that was supposed to illustrate something about perpetual motion, but I couldn’t read enough German to get anything more than that. I know it wasn’t a perpetual motion machine, and I hope a science museum wouldn’t display something that claimed to be a perpetual motion machine, but I couldn’t see what was making it work, either.
Austria’s former Habsburg dynasty tomb is in a church in Vienna and you can visit it. You can google it and see, but some of those caskets/sarcophagus would scare the shit out of Satan if he saw them coming.
I stayed in the Hotel KUNSThof the last time I was in Vienna. I can definitely recommend it: A nice hotel right by the main U-Bahn and train station, with good art on the walls and a laid-back atmosphere in general.
Thanks for the genuine replies folks. Have done the markets (great), the Museum of Crime, and countless bus tours. I haven’t encountered the small sausages (unfortunately) but a few more days so we will endeavour to hunt them down. Derleth- thank you, we went to Prater today and onto the Giant Ferris Wheel.
Our difficulty is adjusting to the cold. It has not been by any stretch freezing but with the biting wind it is a bit of a challenge.
Pretty sure the Vienna sausages remark was a whoosh. I spent many weeks in Vienna and never saw anything like the canned sausages. It would be like looking for French dressing in Paris or Cornish game hens in Cornwall.
