Exploring Vienna On Foot

Our last full day in Vienna dawned cool and sunny. It never really got as warm as was predicted and we both had warm weather clothes that we didn't wear. In talking with our local guide and researching ourselves, we had a list of places we wanted to visit and were contemplating taking the subway around. But, in the end, we decided to just walk as it would let us see more of the city. By the end of the day, we had walked 22 km which was a record for one of our city walks. 

We started off by walking through Stadt Park which was just across from our hotel. It wasn't as big as I'd expected but was well kept and had great paths for walking or cycling. There were also a lot of ducks and crows around. We had noticed that the crows were different from ours. Of course, I looked them up and they are called Hooded Crows. I think they're more distinctive than ours and they sound like the crows on Game of Thrones!

Vienna is on the Danube River and there is also a Danube Canal that cuts through the city. It's used for transport, flood control and recreation. 

Our first quest of the day was to find a couple of installations of building art by Hundertwasser, the artist whose work we had encountered at the brewery near Regensburg. The first location we found was an apartment building where each window is different. Below was a shop designed by the artist. We really enjoyed his non conformist style.

The second location we found was actually a museum and it was swarming with groups of school kids. They weren't very well behaved and were climbing on small trees, running around and being generally annoying. We were both feeling our teacher instincts and had to restrain ourselves from going over and sorting them out! 

Oddly, one of the most interesting parts of the building was the washroom. I can only speak about the male washroom and the couple of pictures below were taken after I was absolutely, positively sure no one else was present! 

Notice the uneven floor in there! This made using the facilities a bit of a challenge. I hope that's not TMI but every place we visited had the same type of floor. Just noticed it more here! 

The eye motif was present in the brewery too. This appears to be my second selfie although it wasn't intentional!

Okay, back to more normal stuff! We headed back to the canal and followed it back into the centre of the city. Our goal was to revisit St. Stephen's Cathedral so that I could climb the tower and get some above the city views. Marilyn was going to visit the Mozart House. Interestingly, along the canal there was a lot of graffiti but it looked more planned than vandalism. There were some interesting images.

This appears to be a nicely decorated pizza oven. 

There were some great views of the city as we walked.

We found the larger cities very bike friendly. I thought this was a cool idea. On the stairways up from bike paths that ran along the canal there were these ramps to make it easy to wheel your bike back up to the street. The pigeon jumped up each step ahead of us, I guess wanting the extra exercise. 

When we got back to Mozart House, which was kind of hidden on a back street, Marilyn decided not to go in as we had learned quite a bit about Mozart in another museum. So, she decided to go shopping while I climbed the tower. The tower I climbed was like these but on the other side and it was a bit taller. I met a rather large group of young students at the bottom but managed to pass them at a half way point where there was an open landing.

There were 343 steps like this. It was a tight spiral of stone steps that had been worn smooth with age.

 

When I reached the top, the first thing I noticed was the defibrillator! I could see how it might be needed. I managed to get my photos out of the open windows before the kids arrived. When they did, it looked like this. You don't even want to know how it sounded!

I always find it interesting to see a city from above. You can see the mixture of old and new buildings.

This shot was through glass as they didn't want to risk someone throwing things into the crowds on the pedestrian mall below.

One of the more interesting things about the tower was that it was used during the war by snipers and lookouts. Some of them carved names into the stone. There was intense fighting in the city as the Russians battled the remaining Germans. The city was extensively bombed as it had a refinery and a major train station. 

When I got back down, Marilyn told me she had found a Swatch store and had bought a new Vienna themed watch. That's Strauss on the strap and the design on the other end is from the roof of the cathedral. The white horse is from the Spanish Riding School and in the middle is the Ferris wheel.

After a quick lunch back at our hotel, we headed out to the Naschmarkt which is an open air market with all kinds of food. We wandered around a bit but didn't buy anything as we'd already eaten and were going home the next day.

After the market we went back to a statue and fountain we'd seen on our way over. It turned out to be a memorial to Russian soldiers. The Russians had insisted on having it built at the end of the war as they did in a few other cities. 

We arrived back at our hotel and realized that we hadn't tried the local cake called Sacher Tort. Nor had we sat somewhere and had a coffee. So, we went to the hotel lounge that overlooked the street and took care of both items at once. Actually, we tried both the Sacher Tort and something called Anna Cake which was a layer cake inside a nougat box!

The cake eating and all the walking made us a bit tired so we rested up before dinner! 

We had some less than stellar schnitzel on the ship and were directed by two local guides to a place that served authentic Austrian food. Reservations were for 7:00 but I was thinking about it in the morning! 

The place where we had dinner, Gasthaus zur Oper, was part of a 3 restaurant chain run by one person. It had all kinds of authentic Austrian food but we just wanted the schnitzel and it was a good choice. They gave us the recipe and we'll be trying it at home!

Our dinner with our Australian friends was fun but bittersweet as we knew we'd be saying so long to them at the end. We discussed how we wanted to visit Australia and plans started to formulate. By the end of coffee I think we had pretty much decided that Australia will be our next major trip. So, it was more of a "see you soon" than "goodbye". 

We were pretty wiped by the time we got home and did some final packing. Our last night view of the city was of the sun setting behind the cathedral.