Vienna is Full of Pleasant Surprises

Today began early when I got up around 8am. I had been able to sleep pretty well the night before, even with all of the noise from the club outside and the strangeness of being somewhere else, so this wasn’t too bad. I then went to breakfast in the hotel. Which was incredible (seriously, I’m excited for it again tomorrow). They had a ton of fruit (including this one that I didn’t recognize but tried anyways. Unfortunately, this was a bad idea since it tasted awful and smelled really funky), some cereals, lots of meats and cheeses, big rolls, and an entire table of dessert. I ended up not only having my usual bowl of cornflakes, but strawberries, cantaloupe, a roll, and chocolate cake as well.

After that wonderful experience, I headed out of the hotel to go explore some of the markets I had heard about in the guidebooks. The first one suggested was in Am Hof which ended up being really close to Stephansdom, a large church that is 2 minutes away from my hotel and basically in the center of everything. The market turned out to be really small and boring, but exploring to get there was so much fun. I found Stephansdom, a couple of large squares with cool buildings, and a bakery that made an entire street smell amazing.

A statue I found on the way to Am Hof

A design on a building I found on the way to Am Hof

Am Hof

Since the next market I wanted to try out would walk me back in the direction of Stephansdom, I decided to explore a bit while walking back. What originally was just an, “Oh, that building looks cool! I’ll just walk down the street to it and then come back” moment became a full on change of route when I discovered the “cool building” was the palace!

The Palace 

The Palace

The Stables

After exploring a bit (I met a very friendly fat cat and found the stables! Though I didn’t realize the second and was really confused by all of the crowds at such a plain building until I headed back by it and a horse stuck its head out of a stall), I turned out to actually be headed in the right direction to Naschmarkt and recommenced my journey. I eventually arrived and was greeted with a huge street with tiny restaurants and stalls selling food clogging the middle of the street. I initially was disappointed that it looked only like a food market, but, after going in it, it turned out to be amazing. There was food from everywhere being sold (I found a ton of Asian cooking supply stores, an apparently world famous falafel stand, a ton of kebab stands, a large number of Chinese/Japanese/Thai restaurants, fresh produce sellers galore, and dried or candied fruit everywhere else), and the walkways between the stands were so jammed and moved so quickly that taking pictures rapidly became an impossibility. Eventually I moved out of the food section to discover that there was a shopping section to the Naschmarkt.

Now let me begin by saying that I love flea markets and that I have never felt overwhelmed either by their size or by how packed people can get in them.

That is, until now.

Dear lord, just like in the food stands, there were so many people constantly moving that it was nigh impossible to see what was at the stalls and if it was worth it to push against traffic in order to get a better look. When I started, I tried to stop at almost every stall, but the overload set in so quickly that eventually I realized that, even when I pushed in, I really wasn’t putting an effort into looking at the wares.

Basically, the wares mostly comprised of your typical flea market stuff: lots of used clothing (though this stuff was mostly really boring or worn used clothing), old coins/stamps/postcards, books on weird subjects, chintzy jewelry, and knick-knacks galore (everything from paperweights to door handles). I eventually found one cool stand that had old traditional Viennese clothing (not really decorative festival ware, but still really interesting) and spent some time there actually looking.

After that, it was time for lunch, so I headed back into the bustle of the food market. I ended up getting a kebab sandwich (I don’t know why I didn’t go for Chinese…I really don’t), which was rather plain (no sauces or anything) but was served on some of the best bread I’ve had in ages so it was still really good. I then also got some falafel from the famous falafel stand, but I’m saving that for a midnight snack.

The food area of Naschmarkt

The shopping area of Naschmarkt

My lunch

From the market, I then stopped back at the hotel before heading out go see Stephansdom and then to try and find the Belvedere museum. Stephansdom was a beautiful church, but I must admit that I've been spoiled by the luxury and grandness of the Italian churches I've seen. So it was impressive, but not surprising. Besides exploring the insides, I also took the long walk (all 343 stairs of it) up the South Tower. It doesn't let you go outside like the North Tower does, but it goes higher and gives you a 360 view of the city, so I wasn't complaining.

A part of Stephansdom

Inside the church

One view from the top

It was then a long walk to Belvedere (a really long walk that ended in me knowing I was basically on top of it but not know where the entrance was. Only to learn that the entrance was a long ways a way down the street), but definitely worth it.

Besides being located on beautiful grounds (which I thought must be one of the best places to jog and apparently I’m right since I saw a TON of joggers there), the Belvedere is beautiful itself and I was able to see some phenomenal pieces there. They have many amazing Klimt paintings including The Kiss. I was again surprised by how strongly I reacted to it, though it was such a different feeling than with David. When looking at David, all I wanted to do was to touch him, for The Kiss, all I wanted to do was to reach out and touch someone else. It didn’t have to be in a romantic way, just something about the emotion conveyed through physicality in that painting made me know that this was a painting that was a better experience when shared. Not to say that I didn’t love looking at it! I was amazed at how certain positions portrayed so much, the colors of both their clothes and their skin, the perfections and imperfections (for all of the incredibleness in that painting—her toes are just plain weird if you look to closely). It was incredible to just stare at, and I did for a while.

The Belvedere

Eventually I got up and left (though I found one other really amazing painting, not by Klimt, called The Evil Mothers that I stared at for a bit). From there, I decided to go back towards Naschmarkt to see if it was still open (it wasn’t) and to go check out the Maria Theresa monument (since she was such a cool lady who happened to be crowned on my birthday).

Now that was also a walk that led to many surprising finds. I found monuments to both Mozart and Goethe, a large park, and the back entrance to the palace (which proved handy when I headed back to the hotel after seeing the monument).

Goethe monument 

Mozart monument

The monument was not overwhelmingly impressive, but I really enjoyed seeing it and walking around the area it was in. There were a ton of bushes sculpted into spheres and cones, two pretty buildings on both sides, and an adorable elephant statue!

Maria Theresa monument

Garden the monument is in

Elephant statue!

After exploring the area, I headed back through the palace to the hostel (and got to pet a horse from one of the many horse drawn carriages!). From there I went back to Stephansdom to have dinner at a Chinese restaurant (review: the spring roll was amazing and had an incredible hot sweet sauce come with it and the rice was delicious, but the Szechwan beef was so-so) and to get gelato at a place next to my hostel. Amusingly enough, while at the gelateria, I had a brief conversation with two Italian older men (there are a ton of Italians here surprisingly) and I think they were really surprised and amused to find a random American girl chatting with them in Italian in Austria.

After that, I went back to the hostel and I’ve been chilling there ever since.

Until tomorrow!

Auf wiedersehen!