36 Hours in Vienna

I was going to write an entry about teaching and living in Budapest but honestly there’s not much to report. I really like where I’m working and of course it’s challenging and I’m still settling into life in Budapest but theres only so many times I can write about mispronouncing Sziastok before I start sounding like a broken record. For this post, I want to write about my first experience traveling out of Budapest. I decided to go to Vienna last weekend because 1). It’s a quick three hour train ride and 2). I wanted to see how traveling via train would be with Covid. It was extremely easy. Everyone wore a mask while on the train and I felt super safe. I was asked to show my vaccination card at a few different cafes in Vienna and when checking in to the hotel which I happily did.

The last time I was in Vienna I was 16 and maybe a bit too spoiled to really appreciate where I was. I was on a bus tour with other American students doing community service and learning about other cultures through a program called People to People. The only thing I remember about my last trip almost 15 years ago is that we rode bikes past a statue of Mozart and going to the Starbucks to get a frappucino meant I was at the peak of cosmopolitan living. 

With my return to Vienna I knew I wanted to take in the climate completely and make up for lost time. I have a really bad habit of impulsively booking trips and not taking into consideration that I should maybe check the city’s calendar before doing so. Like when I went to Dijon to do a wine tasting on a weekend that is marked by absolutely nothing open. Or when I booked a trip to Iceland the week that Iceland was playing in the World Cup. This trip was no exception. I decided to go to Vienna on the weekend of the Vienna marathon. This wasn’t really a problem except the majority of public transport was shut down. 

Vienna is massive. As a New Yorker, I am convinced I can walk everywhere but it quickly became obvious that in a standoff between me and the vienna public transport system, vienna public transport would win. 

I arrived in Vienna Saturday morning and walked 20 minutes from the bus station to my hotel to leave my stuff with the front desk and quickly headed out to get a coffee and some breakfast and by breakfast I mean a piece of cheesecake. I ate about half (I unfortunately was still getting over a tiny bit of a stomach bug undoubtedly caught from one of my kindergartners the weekend I went but I’ve never let the possibility of shitting myself stop me before). 

I set off from the coffee shop with a general direction in mind but no specific destination. Aimless wandering is sometimes my favorite part of exploring a city- following the winding  cobblestone streets and letting them spit me out somewhere completely unplanned is super freeing but at a certain point, I always start to crave a bit more guidance. I stopped for lunch at an outdoor cafe and made a plan for the afternoon. I was near Hofburg Palace- which was so massive I didn’t even realize how close I was. I was looking for one singular palace but Hofburg Palace is a small city in and of itself. You can’t tour the whole palace on one ticket- or honestly in one day so I ended up touring one part of the castle. I walked around and bought tickets for a musical performance that night. Then went to one of the castle’s greenhouses that had been transformed into a butterfly garden. I went back to the hotel to change and check into my room. I charged my phone for a bit then headed back out to dinner and the show. I stopped at a small pub and despite not feeling that hungry I got a wienerschnitzel and a gruner veltliner which was perfectly complemented by the lemon on the schnitzel. I was disappointed in myself that I couldn’t finish it but if turning 30 has taught me anything it’s that if you don’t have tums, don’t eat anything that has slight taste or spice. I’m old! 

Afterwards I headed to the performance which I was fully expecting to be a scam but tickets were $40 and it promised a nondescript hour and a half of dance opera and orchestra. As I walked up to the venue I exchanged nervous glances with a fellow English speaking girl who also had tickets. We had to enter through the lobby of a museum that seemed closed and take the elevator up to the final floor where we were let into a small room with about 30 to 40 other people sitting in folding chairs. I briefly thought I should probably text my parents cause I think I’m about to be trafficked but four musicians took the stage and for the next hour and a half I enjoyed one of the best curated musical shows I’ve ever seen. It was in German so I couldn’t understand a lot but it started when Mozart was 6 and they played small sections from well-known pieces all the way up to the 1910s with opera singers and ballet dancers accompanying in certain areas. 

Sunday morning I woke up practically vibrating. I had to check out, leave my stuff at the front desk, and rush to The Vienna Opera House where I had bought tickets for a ballet. Going to the ballet is one of my favorite things to do. Actually going to see any type of live theater is my favorite thing. Due to COVID I hadn’t been able to see live theater in a while but I was seeing a ballet at the Vienna Opera House and I was so excited. Unfortunately, it turns out I also have a bad habit of not being able to read German either. I booked a lecture about the ballet instead of a performance of the ballet. Suddenly the reason I only paid 9 euros became glaringly obvious. After about a half hour I decided this was a great opportunity to explore the Vienna Opera House. Which I did, until I got kicked out. I wandered through an antique market convincing myself I DID NOT need an antique compact and decided I would treat myself to lunch. Normally when I travel in Europe I pick one or 2 meals to treat myself and the rest of the meals consist of bread and fruit I take from the hotel or 2 euro croissants with sandwich meat purchased from a grocery store. 

The avenue leading up to the opera house is littered with hotels with room prices that made me dry-heave but they all had fancy restaurants with tables on the sidewalk. I chose the cafe imperial attached to the hotel imperial. I sat and watched the marathon runners pass as I enjoyed gazpacho and fresh tomato and mozzarella salad. It was the perfect reset I needed. 

I had planned to go to the Schonbrunn Palace but because of the lack of trams, the journey was going to take an hour so I decided to go to a closer palace- Belvedere. I’m so glad I did. It was actually this huge sprawling estate located right next to my hotel. When I first passed it, I thought it was just a fenced in park because the grounds were so massive. 

When I say everything in Vienna looks like a palace I think it’s because everything in Vienna is a palace? The Belvedere Palace consists of two buildings ( called Upper and Lower Belvedere) with a beautiful garden and maze that’s a little over half a mile long separating them. A ticket to freely wander both buildings as well as the multiple manicured gardens was 15 euros. The top two floors of the Upper palace are an art museum as well as a well-preserved Chandelier and room of marble. I walked through the entire Upper palace which took up way more time than I thought it would. I honestly could have walked around more. I really only explored about half of the grounds and didn’t even get to the lower palace but my feet were aching. I was wearing high heels from the opera still and needed to sit. I found a beer garden and sat down, pecking at some streusel before it was time to get my bag and head to the train station. 

I will absolutely go back to Vienna before my time here is through and hopefully I’ll actually see a performance at the opera house this time instead of a lecture where I have to nod thoughtfully to myself for a half hour pretending I know German.