Vienna. The city that stole my heart. After our train dropped us off on the west side of town and we boarded the UBahn, I was near giddy with excitement. We booked a stay at the brand-new Sissi West hotel right next to Schloss Schönbrunn. It was a chic and modern place with a quaint view of the river and churches nearby. Since Dallin was still on call, we spent the morning walking the grounds of yellow Schönbrunn complete with wintery gardens and a Christmas market. We sipped kinderpunsch as we wandered. From the top of the hill, the palace was the forefront on the horizon of a Viennese cityscape.
Next, we took the UBahn to Karlsplatz. The blue-domed Karlskirche towered over another busy Christmas market.
It was dark when we finally headed to Stephansplatz. As we exited the subway station, the medieval church bells tolled with great resounding loudness. I purchased a classic Austrian pumpkin soup in a bread bowl. We spent hours meandering the busy city streets.
The next day, we saw the same streets from a daytime perspective. Votivskirche loomed in all its gothic glory, beckoning people from all over the world to listen to sermons of Christ. We did so, enjoying the warmth from the side pews beneath a glimmering rainbow beam from the stained glass windows. The sound bounced so severely it took us ten minutes to realize the sermon was partially in English!
Seemingly everything in district 1 has Grecian influence. At Hofburg, the trials of Hercules were depicted in great statues. At the parliament building, Athena glistened gold. We walked for ten miles that day, even taking a nap during the late afternoon to conserve our energy before the Vivaldi concert at Karlskirche late that night. The concert was everything we could have hoped for. The staff handed us blankets as we filed into the great cathedral, and then the lights were dimmed and the music whisked us away to another century entirely.
We also enjoyed the art history museum and the war museum. The former I had visited twice before and still loved to see, but the war museum was probably one of Dallin's favorite parts of the trip with its wartime artifacts dating from World War II back to the 1500s or so.
On our last night, we met with Baagii, a dear friend to me when I lived in Vienna as a 19-year-old. We visited Schonbrünn Christmas markets in their yellow nighttime glow and enjoyed dinner at a classic schnitzel restaurant. And then like that, the trip was over.
As we stepped back onto the plane, I knew I left my heart in Europe all over again.
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| Hofburg |
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| The parliament building |
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| Votivskirche |
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| Rathaus |
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| Stephansdom |
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| Hofburg |
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| The opera house |
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| Karlskirche |
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| An 18th century sculpture of "Roman Ruins" |
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| Schönbrunn |
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| Kunsthistoriches Museum |
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| The war museum |
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| Exterior of the war museum |
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| Belvedere |
