Vienna, Austria

Note: As you know, I had the amazing opportunity to travel all over Europe. Therefore it was hard to choose my "favorites," however I came up with categories. I have a favorite city for each main trip (so Paphos, Athens, and Prague). But then I also have a favorite country as a whole (other than Cyprus), and THAT was Austria. Maybe it was those hills that were alive (Sound of Music reference) or the fresh Alpine air, but the country is incredible in every city!

Vienna was..the endless city. How the heck do they fit SOO much in one city?? I'll do my best to keep it short, there's just so much to fit in this one! Hope you love the whirlwind adventure of Vienna. Also, note that my Favorite part of Vienna is one of the LAST parts of this post (the festival), so if you get bored with the palaces and such, at least check out the festival.

So, the first place we went was to this artist's creation. His name was Gustav Klimt and he had an amazing view on art and life. He noticed that everything in nature has movement, irregularity and flowing lines. He also noticed that man-made objects were so far removed from nature bc of the geometric shapes and sharp edges. He felt that art and artitecture should mimic the beauty of nature, so he created this apartment building out of flowing lines and colors. Since only those that live there can see the inside, he made an example for people to explore beside the apartments. Inside, it feels like the fluid, lifelike motions of nature. With trees, waterfalls, and all sorts of things. He also was an amazing artist.

Palace 1

Roaming the city center, lots and lots to do on this FREEZING, rainy, windy day

Vienna is the headquarters for the famous Swarvarski crystals company. In this store everything SPARKLES, unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures beyond the big one in the front.

This is a famous coffee shop "Hawelka" and as we know, Vienna Roast is a common name for coffee. So, of course I had to have some true Viennese coffee from the source! They are also famous for Chocolate Torte cakes.

This is a famous bakery and since it was so close to the main palace, it was often frequented by royalty.

Renoir Museum

Super classy (and outrageously expensive) hats!

If you've heard of dancing Spanish stallions, they are bred and trained right here in Vienna.

Palace 2: Unfortunately, in many places you cannot take pics and they are SO strict on this! So, I only have pics of the golden tableware. The palace entrance behind me..this is only to Princess Sisi's palace! It's not even the REAL palace and it took hours to tour this "mini" one that was home to a very famous and beautiful princess, Sisi. However, seeing all her GORGEOUS dresses, diamonds, crown jewels, and elaborate rooms was pretty darn awesome.

 Can you imagine having this as your table center piece?! And I love this tea set :)

I have this problem, where if something says "do not touch" I simply MUST touch it (unless it's a famous painting or there's guards and I'll be kicked out).

This is an image from online of Sisi. I got to see the REAL dress she is wearing in the painting AND more excitingly, her famous 27 diamond star clips throughout her hair.

And THIS is the "real" palace. WHAT?! We chose to only tour one of the bazillion palaces..I mean how many palaces do you need in one city? So, did not actually go into this one below. I mean we had to fit in some other things the city had to offer, other than extravagant palaces.

Street Festival!! 

Walking away from the palaces, Greek museum, and gardens, we spotted this beautiful building in the distance and decided to go check it out. As we are walking through the park before it, we come across a random street party/beer & wine festival. That's something I miss a lot, in Europe there's so much more festivals and market-community oriented things. They are lighthearted and not politically correct; just fun and laid-back.

 

  First sign of the festival we are about to discover: this random guy in a kilt runs up, starts talking in Dutch, wants his picture taken with me and then runs off toward the street party.

 ^ Giant pretzels in the land they were invented and pigs roasting away below.

I love markets bc everyone is so happy and proud of their crafts and work. Look how adorable this smith is!!

Well, we found the awesome building (it's the town office btw) behind these awesome singers. They were yodeling, singing in dutch and drinking in kilts. Does life get better than these moments? 

 Moving on, we found this cathedral that was beautiful and very detailed. I am not Catholic, and do not typically connect with the Catholic church, but for some reason at this cathedral, I decided to sit in the pews by myself and pray. I asked God/the Universe to guide me and give me a sign of what to give me some direction. Little did I know, the Universe had some serious signs to guide me with (just wait for my Paris post to come). Although they were tough to take, I appreciate that God (whoever he is) heard me and steered me away from a bad life decision. Of course, I'll always cherish the memories as a wonderful chapter in my life.

OPERA TIME

Vienna is famous for soo many things, luckily I'm a trooper and pushed on so I was able to see a little piece of all it had to offer. One thing, is the Vienna Opera house..granted I could barely afford food at this point let alone the 200E ticket price, BUT there were small-scale operas for 30E and that seemed worthwhile to me.

Not to be a total creeper, but look how freaking cute this little girl in front of me was! She was such a character :p