Vienna Walkabout

The rain has followed us to Vienna. We could hear it through our opened window (no AC in our hotel) early this morning. For a moment, I was tempted to skip our four hour city walk/tour but it's our only full day here and staying in the hotel room wasn't appealing either. So off we went with our group at 8:15 am to meet our local guide, Wolfgang.

At first glance, Vienna appears to be just another European capital with a medieval core (old town center), urban dwellers and tourists browsing in the shopping district and lingering in cafes, auto traffic, huge monuments and buildings, road construction and noise. During our walk/tour, we learned that Vienna is so much more than that.

Wolfgang shared bits of Vienna's past and present and, with light jokes about the Swiss, Germans and Italians, tried to keep our minds off the steady rain that we shielded with our umbrellas. What we most enjoyed was learning how the citizens of Vienna and Austria live today, not just the long ago history of the city and country. For instance, he explained why Viennese cafes are such an important part of their culture and day to day life; how the local cafe essentially becomes their living room, a place where they order and linger over a coffee and pastry, since they live in small apartments and need a place to visit and entertain. And there's no rush to move on in these cafes so the waiter/waitress can serve another customer, earn more tips. The practice of lingering is accepted, and somewhat expected. Now, that's a charming custom. Actually, we found this to be true in most of the places we ate during our trip - very little intrusion from the wait staff, and they didn't bring the bill unless we asked for it.

We also learned that Vienna is a city of museums - lots of them. Art. Music. Jewels. History. Paintings. Architecture. Most are housed in huge former palaces and buildings constructed by the Habsburgs, the last monarchy to rule Austria, when the country was a giant kingdom and very powerful. Wolfgang pointed many of the museums out to us and encouraged us to go visit them, but we had so little time here.


He escorted us through one of the best museums, the Treasury, which was filled with priceless artifacts commissioned and collected by the Habsburgs for hundreds of years, including crowns and sceptres, ceremonial robes, Charlemagne's sabre...

....and Christian relics (including John the Baptist's tooth, wood from Jesus's manger, a part of the cross he was crucified on, and a part of the loincloth he wore at the crucifixion). Shortly after noon the tour was over, the rain had faded away, and the city came alive. We found a restaurant to have gyros for lunch, backtracked to tour a few places that piqued our interest, went back to the hotel to rest up and pack, then met our group for our farewell dinner at a nice restaurant in the old city. 

Wolfgang mentioned, perhaps jokingly, that Austrians love to stand around in the cold to eat their food. He pointed this place out to us, vacant early in the morning, as an example. When we came back by in the afternoon, when it was still raining, we could see what he meant.

Our first glimpse of the Gothic St. Stephen's Cathedral and its signature spiral, in the center of the city. The exterior ornateness of this cathedral reminded us somewhat of Barcelona's Sagrada Familia. The inside was just as ornate, and dark.

A memorial to Pope John Paul II, inside St. Stephen's Cathedral.

After dinner, on our walk back to the hotel, we found that Vienna is even more beautiful at night. The buildings and monuments were all softly lit and just gorgeous. And when reviewing the day, we realized what we had learned most of all, from Wolfgang and our own observations during our short visit, is that the Viennese and Austrian people take time to enjoy life, no matter what the weather is like.

So lesson learned, don't let a little rain spoil your day. Get out there and learn and explore and enjoy life. YOLO!!