Oh Vienna (25th-27th Sept)

On Friday I set off on my trip to see my coursemates who are working in Wiener Neustadt in Vienna. Having got on a mini airplane (there were about 20 rows), I managed to successfully navigate my way to Vienna Sudbahnhof, where I meet Tom and Andy. My first impression of Vienna is that it has a much more Eastern European feel, some of the stations I passed through on the way into town looked much like they would have in clips from the 80s. The boys were very knowledgable tour guides, and we spent Friday afternoon, dodging Mozart dressed ticket touts along the way, exploring the centre of the city, past Palace Belledevere, we visited St. Leonard's church and climbed up to the top of the Dome to see all the wonderful frescos. We then walked to the State Parliament, a very grand building, past the Rathaus, and the Opera, more on that later, and to the main square of the city, where the Cathedral is, which we also visited. We had an early dinner, schnitzel and potato salad, very traditional, and then drinks at a nearby bar, which had quirky toilets, and also sold the furniture in it. Then we headed back on the train to Wiener Neustadt, to the boys apartment in a student block. I was very jealous of their two minute walk to work.
Nex morning, after a lesiurely breakfast, we headed to the Prater in Vienna, which has a ferris wheel, made in Victorian times, by a Liverpool native, fine British craftmanship, which still works today. We had a ride and had terrific views of the whole of Vienna. There were some special booths on the wheel were groups were having lunch and drinks receptions. Lunch was a relaxed affair by the banks of the Donau, a leafy suburban area. We spent the afternoon going round the Hofburg, it had a large, a bit too large, silver exhibition, and an interesting exhibition on Empress Elizabeth, known as Sisi, who seemed to be the Princess Di of her time, and I'd never heard of her so found it really informative. The Imperial apartments were rather grand as expected, had to rush through them a bit to get to the Opera. We had a relatively short queue for tickets, which cost 3 euros, and had standing places in the balcony with a reasonably good view, could see all the orchestra as well, and treated ourselves to interval drinks, but felt a little shabby in our tourist clothes compared to some of the well dressed audience. It was the Pique Dame, by Tchaikovsky, which translates as the Queen of Spades. Happily there was a translation bar, and although I didn't have huge sympathy for the main characters, I really enjoyed myself, and was glad the Opera wasn't too highbrow for an Essex girl. There was a great moral about the dangers of gambling and a gruesome end. The building interior itself was very grand and orchestra sounded amazing. The Opera is partly state funded, bring it in in England, I say.
I spent Sunday visiting the Schonnbrunn Palace, just time for the grounds, due to length of Sunday morning lie in, being knackered from standing at Opera for full 3 hours. It is magnificient though, and managed to do the deceptively tricky maze quite successfully. Then grabbed my traditional Austrian coffee and strudel before buying tourist postcards and Mozart chocs for my lab. Writing up my adventures at the airport before I forgot what I'd done passed time at the airport and I got back around 12 to my accommodation in Basel, so am not too knackered tonight typing this up.
Pretty exciting weekend really and loved Vienna, I'd definitely go again as didn't manage to see all of it.
Until next week,

Swizzy x x x