Austria marks number 34 of the list of country that I’ve visited so far. And here are my impressions on Vienna, Austria :).
Vienna, known as the most livable city in the world in 2016 is quite small, yet charming. Before deciding to go there, I was always curious of the beauty of this city. For years, people show pictures of Vienna and they all look beautiful and very “European” to my eyes: old buildings, gorgeous palaces, beautiful parks, and so on. For someone like me, whose forever in love with Europe, of course Vienna is on the list of places to go!
The first day I landed in Vienna, I didn’t fall in love with the city right away. I just realized that I lost my passport (at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, before flying to Vienna!), thus, I had to go to the police station to file a report and get a letter from them. I walked quite far from the famous PRATER Theme Park to the police station with little information on the direction, only to find that for such an issue (passport lost), police station couldn’t write a letter. There was another institution dedicated to take care of all the administration matters and I had to go there the next day. Damn. The police gave me the address and I snapped a photo of it.
The next day, I went to the address the police gave me by Uber. It was a wrong address! Lucky that the Uber driver was kind enough to lend me his phone to call that office. How could the address written on the police station’s office be wrong? OMG. Could you imagine how many people going to a wrong building and feel lost?
Anyway, I found that office – with the help of the Uber driver – and had to wait for at least 1.5 hours to get the letter. Then I rushed to the Indonesian Embassy in Vienna, gave the letter from the Austrian Administration Office, filled in some forms, etc. The Indonesian Embassy staff told me that I could fetch my new & temporary passport the next day. Yeay! At least one issue has been resolved!
So, the first two days of my visit in Vienna, I obviously didn’t go to any exciting places — only the PRATER Theme Park, because I traveled with my hubby’s family and #SiennaLittleExplorer :). I took my 22 months old baby girl (toddler) on a carousel and she seemed quite happy.
From the third day to the eighth day, I started to explore Vienna.. and began to love this small, yet pretty city. I particularly loved the Old Town of Vienna, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. OMG. The Old Town is full of old and historical buildings, gothic and baroque styles statues, amazing palace, Viennese traditional cafes, and many more. So many things to see!
Walking around the Old Town was something that I could do for days… just looking at the architecture of the buildings, the Hofburg Palace, the old churches, listening to the church bells, the sound of the horse-carts, watching the people passing by while sitting in one of the “institutional” Viennese cafes eating a piece of apple strudel, oh… so nice.
In the evenings, there were plenty of classical concerts to be enjoyed, which I LOVED! Classical music could be hear in every corner of the city. Even street musicians played beautiful pieces of Mozart, Beethoven, and other famous composers that have lived and worked in Vienna. It was such a “too-good-to-be-true” experience. Totally how I dreamt it.
I also loved visiting the museums and palaces in this city. Checking out beautiful paintings from famous painters, learning how the Kings, Princes, and Princesses lived, walking in the ridiculously huge palaces’ gardens, were some of the things that I enjoyed during our stay in Vienna.
For me, eight days in Vienna itself wasn’t enough. I loved taking the time when visiting museums and palaces, thus I could easily spend hours in one place :D. So, if you’re pretty much the same type of traveler like me, spending more days in Vienna would be totally worth it.
Despite being in love with Vienna’s charm, the food in Vienna wasn’t too vegetarian-friendly. In all restaurants I’ve been, the food was just so-so – if not disappointing. However, if you’re not vegetarians, I’m sure you’d love it here, because they have big portions of wiener schnitzel, ribs, etc! 😀
And for sweet tooth, this is your heaven! You could have all kind of desserts and cakes you want here, and they’re all so sweet! 🙂
Those are my brief impressions on Vienna, Austria. Do you agree or disagree? 😉
been there last year on Autumn.
unfortunately, I only spent 1 night in Vienna. :(( would love to visit this city again
Vienna is just beautiful, isn’t it! 🙂