vienna 2

Thursday morning October 28 since I had not found any walking tours like I had in Budapest, I would place my fate in the hands of Frommer’s in the 2 walking tour itineraries I had printed off the computer. The first one would cover “Imperial Vienna,’ the Hofburg, palaces, theater buildings, and main city center ring area and the like.Also since I had not done so the night before because it was dark I figured I would walk down the shopping street Mariahilfer Strasse as suggested by the hostess as the hostel was not located in the center but rather near the major train station Westbahnhof. So I think I may have fallen asleep at about 1am the night before and was up maybe 7:30 but turned over for several more minutes before waking up after 8. At this hostel breakfast was to be 8-11, but since they were doing some sort of renovations to the breakfast room, when I asked where to go in the  morning,  they just said to go to reception in the front room and they would lead me to the location. So at about 9:15 I think I showed up and was walked over to the breakfast location. It was outside, around the corner, across the street, into a garage, through a courtyard and then finally into a door that said ‘café.’ It was crazy small, maybe 4 tables and 15 chairs altogether. There was 1 guy sitting and having breakfast, some guy with a ponytail and wearing an apron was monitoring the food and serving the guy eating and there was a worried woman with a cup of coffee conversing in broken English about leaving a key with a neighbor for her daughter. I sat at a table and was served coffee, juice, milk amongst other things, toast, and a roll fresh hot out of the oven,and there was cereal on the counter. It said breakfast buffet but on Thursday it wasn’t quite being treated as a buffer. I assume because many apartments in the hostel have kitchens that not many people opt for the breakfast which is 4 EUR per day, or it could have been that the hostel was relatively empty as it was mid-week in late October, which I believe might be the case based on my being allowed to get a double room for the price of a single. After breakfast I began my trek down Mariahilfer Strasse not before stopping for a coffee for the go. After the ridiculous lack of sleep from last weekend I was not about to allow myself to succumb to exhaustion on this trip. At the end of the shopping street which was busy but mostly chain stores nothing particularly special, I then consulted my map to find the Staatoper, which was indicated as the starting place of my personal walking tour. Once I found it, I began probably around 10:30, it brought me first to Albertinaplatz and Philharmonikerstrasse around the Staatoper and past the Albertina museum. Then down some side streets to a small palace I forget the name of that is now privately owned, and also some storefronts with valuable antiques and glassware. The next stop was some fountain (don’t worry I will fill in the names of these things when I again consult the tour on Frommers.com, I also want to make a googlemap highlighting the walking route I took) that had 4 symbols in Neumarkt, that much I remember! Down another small street past a drug store that still had vaulted ceilings and glass jars on the shelves, I was tempted to go in for a picture but didn’t know how much the people inside would appreciate it. At the end of the street was the AugustinerKirche (?) in its yellow-ish façade and past a building that is apparently the most famous auction house in Europe. As it was a general tour, the descriptions of each location were brief yet informative, and I liked it that way, also I got to go at my own pace, and some streets were really nice and quiet, but others like the next one, Frommers even acknowledges, is small and quaint but is disturbed by the ‘roaring traffic’ which indeed there is because of how fast people drive over the cobblestones. Through a small tunnel and now into a grand courtyard of the Hofburg Complex, a few big statues and fronts, and then again through s pedestrian tunnel past the Spanish riding school, unfortunately I was not feeling adventurous enough to figure out how to see a performance as I have heard it requires precise timing and I was aiming to see as much as I could in the day based on my limited time in the city. Finally I came to what is considered possibly to be the most ornate vehicular tunnel in the world, or at least in Europe, it is into the Hofburg complex towards the Staatoper. In this tunnel however was a sign to enter to tour the Kaiser Apartments, I had heard about these, of the 2600 rooms in the palace about 20 are open to the public. So I decided to give it a shot, and bought a ticket for an audio guide tour, the ticket, less than 12 EUR for students, included the Silver Collection (all the imperial plates, cookware, tableware everything copper silver, gold, ceramic, porcelain of Austrian aristocracy and history), the Sisi Museum, a dive into the personal world of Empress Elizabeth, wife of Franz Josef, as she was a tough cookie, never conforming to the expectations of court life, and becoming very independent, partly due to suffering consecutive tragedies with the premature death of her eldest daughter and youthful suicide of her only son Rudolf. Finally included was a tour of the imperial apartments, a very worthwile 12- EUR spent for 2-3 hours. After this, I walked the exterior of the palace’s right wing, before coming upon Graben (?), a major pedestrian thoroughfare, since it was after 1:00, I stopped for lunch, but did not want to do so as I had done in Budapest on Monday, so I found a quick counter-service place serving fish and other things so in my horribly limited German vocabulary, I ordered some sort of grilled fish sandwich and fries and a soda, sat down at a table, read, finished the food and was on my way again. Now, in Graben it is quite a sight as it is so busy, plus at the far end is Stephansplatz, home to what is often considered the most identifiable landmark in Vienna, the St. Stephen’s Church. Before this, there were a myriad of ‘street performers’, including one guy dressed in all silver and leaning out of a picture frame with some sort of medieval-themed garb on, he was normal enough so I put a coin in the jar and took a picture and the ‘painting’ moved. There was also some guy dressed in a white sheet with a hole cut out of it for his face standing on a stool making strange bird noises and faces and gestures at people, I’m not sure what his deal was but he reminded me of a scrapped character idea for an episode of Are You Afraid Of The Dark, a mix between a joker (i.e. the Ghastly Grinner) and something out of the episode Bookish Babysitter where the medieval tale comes to life in his house. The church, which thankfully was free, except if you wanted a guided tour or wanted to go close, like to the middle seats or the front platform and defied my usual attitude about churches in that it was unique and impressive and had its own character, very nice inside, and spent about 10-15 minutes there. Then I continued my walking tour and realized I had passed the church that Frommers said was their favorite in Vienna, the Peterskirche, I thought they were applying that phrase to the Stephens Church which would make sense given its status as quite a landmark. Anyway I backtracked down Graben and off a side alley found the Peters church, it was a bit unassuming, and smaller inside, there were many people seated, I thought there was a service going on, but no one was on the altar, so it must have just been personal reflections.  This was free as well, so I snapped a couple pictures, took a short video because of some eery organ music that was playing, and put 2 EUR in some pot on the way out. Next I went down Karnter Strasse, which is another big pedestrian thru-way, on the corner of some building is the remain of some tree that blacksmiths (?) used to stake a nail into for good luck each time they were leaving town, there’s no plaque, just this mangled, narled tree in a case so I’m not sure many people knew what it was. Down Karnter Strasse, is a famous glass store with a small museum in its second floor, or so says Frommers. Don’t really remember anything else notable on Karnter Strasse other than its busyness and what not. Eventually it leads back to Staatoper where the tour began, it estimated 3  hours, and with some church visits, and the Hofburg museums and lunch, it took about 5 hours. Not bad, only 3:30 and my 1^st tour was already finished. Keeping in mind the fact I had only 2 days in Vienna, I strived to see as much as possible so thankfully I had the 2^nd walking tour with me, and despite how much I had walked in the day, I was determined to utilize as much daylight as possible. Now this tour conveniently also begins at Staatoper, but explores some outskirts and the southern Ringstrasse. First it goes past a statue of Goethe, by the main state library, then into a plaza named after some notable architect who died a few years back, which opens up to the fine arts institute of Vienna, yup the same one which twice denied admission to an aspiring teenage Adolf Hitler, in any case, the institute produced quite a few notable names, though they escape my mind right now. After the institute, went down a few side streets and turned to follow the path of the U4, first stopping by some other architecture/arts building that had fallen into disrepair by the 1970s, was bought and fixed up to look like its original state. Further down the street, circled around some side streets and oh yea, before when coming out of Karlsplatz some pavilions designed by Otto Wagner which were meant to be subway station entrances. Across the street was the home to the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra, yes strangely enough a street which borders the StaatOper is named Philharmonikerstrasse. I would have taken a tour of the building but its 1:00 english-language tour on Friday would have conflicted with my Leopoldstadt tour at 1:30. Also there is the Kunsthaus (?) which is some sort of recital/performance building. Across the street from there keeping around Karlsplatz is the Wien Museum, which I considered doing on Friday but decided there wasn’t enough time for. After, I moved on to Karlskirche, which was built as a thanks to God for giving Vienna the strength to prevail through the plague years, it is an impressive structure, though I did not go inside because my mission was to beat the sunlight and my tour did not specifically suggest visiting the inside. Also I tried to find a plaque at Karlsgasse 4 commemorating some house which Brahms or Mozart died in but could not find it other than a plaque on a green circle which was completely in German and did not state either of their names. Moving on to the Vienna Techological Institute, this is a powerhouse of scientific minds and there are busts of founders in the front, further down was the Freihaus which was the oldest social living building in Vienna, but fell into terrible conditions at the turn of the 20^th century, something of a slum, and was eventually demolished. Now, an unimpressive annex of the Tech school stands at its place. I continued down a small side street  as the sun was starting its decent to find the Nachsmarkt, which is full of fish, meat, bakery, and produce vendors. It’s sort of like Vienna’s less glamorous looking version of Quincy market in Boston. I took a video of my walk down the main aisle here, by holding my camera from my pocket so as to be as inconspicuous as possible because I didn’t know if people would appreciate being recorded or not. At this point, the tour I had gotten through at a pretty good pace and the rest consisted of winding through some streets to observe facades and turn of the century architecture including some apartment buildings designed by Otto Wagner. The tour deposited me to where the ____markt normally occurs every Saturday from 7am-4pm, it is notable as Vienna’s weekly ‘seedy flea market’ but is just a parking lot if it is not Saturday morning or afternoon. At this point, , it was probably about 5:30, sun not quite down, I wanted to sit somewhere to make my next plan and for some strange reason there were no benches in the vicinity of the outdoor markets, I was also ridiculously tired as I had been walking nonstop for 7-8 hours and done the equivalent of 2 walking tours in 1 day, good measure though as the next day I would be able to fairly dedicate my time to specific destinations! I decided I wanted to go experience the sun descent while sitting near the water so I made my way to Schwedenplatz and crossed the bridge to descend to the path adjacent the canal, picked myself a bench and started figuring some places I’d want to go on Friday as well as where I would have dinner this night. First path I chose once again no benches but I did observe people across the water sitting on benches so I figured of course this would be the case. So I went over to the other side and finally found a bench. As it got darker and the lamps came on, I was sitting in front of a bush which surrounded a small playground. There were not many people on the path and some guys went into the park which was pretty dark, I was not sure what they were doing. Then I heard a lot of rustling in the bushes, and eventually in a shadow noticed something furry so I assumed it was a rat or mouse, it was scared so I kicked towards it to make it go away. In the young people’s guide to Vienna I picked out a place that once again said huge portions, Viennese dishes, and looked like a barn inside, seemed good enough. Made my way there, it was on Burggasse which was pretty close but north of my hostel, so I figured id take the trams there so I walked to the 2, waited for about 5-10 mins and got on, it crossed the bridge back into 1^st district, made a stop, and promptly crossed back into 2^nd district, I figured this couldn’t be right so I waited 1 more stop until I realized it was not going back to Ringstrasse. Then I found a sign that said something about a demonstration and there being no service so the 2 was running an abbreviated route that did not include a run down Franz Josef Strasse, then I settled for the U-Bahn, but that was a navigation unto itself because the line I needed to get to get to the restaurant was the 6 and I was 2 switches away from it in any direction so it took 30-40 minutes to get there because I didntt want to walk anymore. Finally after like 8 stops down on the U6 which is basically Vienna’s ‘el-train’ as it goes above the street like the 7 in queens, I got off at Burggasse and walked towards number 103. Found it on a corner and it was nice and cozy looking so I went inside, it was just like I expected it to be. The waitress came over to me at the door and I said ‘ein tisch bitte’ as I had just looked up the word for ‘table’ in German on my trusty $8 pocket translator. She then asked in German if I was just 1 person and I affirmed. It was not particularly busy but every table was occupied so she put me at a small table next to the bar, which funny enough really isn’t a bar as much as it is a counter where food is prepared and there are keg taps because there is no place to sit at the bar, it is much more an eating place, a etterem in Hungarian, an eethuis in Dutch. On the table was only a German menu so I tried to make sense of it best I could, I compensated by first just ordering a beer and then asking for an English menu which I tried to compare to the German menu just for the hell of it. The beer I had, in a 0.5 L mug of course I forget but I took a picture of it so it’s in my pictures somewhere. It was very cold out and I was very tired so I ordered a bowl of chicken soup with noodles which was scrumptious, just good enough for a starter dish. For my entrée I ordered a Wienerschnitzel  with a mixed salad. I didn’t know the salad was not actually going to be mixed, there were boiled potatoes on one side, diced carrots on another, intact lettuce in the middle amidst a few other veggies, and some pickled/vinegar cucumbers, it reminded me of the pickle bar at Harold’s for some reason, and there was interesting vinegary cole slaw. I thus used this ‘mixed salad’ like something at harold’s and instead of eating it out of the bowl, applied the veggies atop my schnitzel, whether this was right or not I do not know. Now everytime I think of schnitzel I think of Israel because in the hostels we stayed at when traveling away from Agron Street 8, schnitzel, basically a breaded bonelees chicken cutlet, was a popular dish. Wienerschnitzel actually means schnitzel of Vienna (aka Wien), shows how much I know, the difference is that this is usually a veal cutlet rather than chicken, that said, the one I ordered was absolutely huge, taking over the whole plate, I took a picture of that, and then proudly proceeded to finish it completely, it was fried and greasy but whatever it was good and I had Wienerschnitzel in Wien like you’re supposed to! Yay! After dinner, it was earlier than after I ate the night before, so I figured to take advantage of it and also the fact I had been out walking everywhere all day and call it a night. Being not far from the hostel I decided to dallyingly walk back instead of taking U-Bahn or tram, it was nice and took about 20 minutes, quiet dark streets with a few storefronts and bars along the way. Got in around 9:30, checked email amongst other things, emptied my pockets onto the bed which I love to do because it’s like a resignation from the day I make and promptly fell asleep within 2 hours, a good sleep at that, it was a good day and I was happy with how much I was able to see.