Vienna: Getting Lost & Found, Street Opera, and the Schönbrünn Palace

Taylor and I arrived in Vienna, and it was HOT. For the first time on this trip so far I stepped out of a train station and immediately started shedding layers.

Following a map on my tablet I led us for about a half an hour in the completely wrong direction from our hostel, but because we went that way we found the Belvedere Museum. A long, regal, Imperial even, park between two huge classic buildings; the gardens in between housing two major fountains, sphinx statues and topiary boxwood cut into exact rectangles and cones.

We set off again into the hot city, packs on our backs searching for our hostel. The Vienna we were seeing was south-east of the old city, walking towards it. The style of the city does feel fairly canyon-like, with mostly narrowish streets contained by buildings 6-7 stories tall in the popular row house style. The streets come together and split, apparently without much rhyme or reason to their direction except that mostly they point in the direction of the old town.

Soon we found the Wombats hostel, settled in and set off again to explore the city in the late afternoon sun.

Firstly though, dinner. Very important. Yelp led us to a restaurant just across the market that provided perhaps the best meal I've had so far in Europe. Very high praise that I don't take lightly. It was a spiced goulash thick with tomato and tender meat that fell apart on the fork. A soft dumpling the size of a softball and a sausage cut to look like a fat calamari. Between the two of us we cleaned the plate.

Full and happy, Taylor and I ventured off into the city, in search of the center with its gardens and museums. But try as we might, we managed not to find it for the better part of an hour, constantly finding we had walked too far in one direction or another through the narrow streets.

The part of Vienna around the city center is full of peekaboo views. The high buildings tunnel vision to a far away end of a street with something glorious at the end, a church, a state building, park or greenspace, all pulling attention away from the quest's intended endpoint. Like a spiderweb with jewels at each crux of strands.

Finally, as the sun was starting to set we found the museum district with its classic buildings housing numerous treasures. We took a moment to rest on the steps of one of the closed museums and look out over the garden leading up to it. Equestrian statues, large fountains and again, topiary all over the place, making the shrubs look like a giant child's set of blocks neatly arranged by shape.

At dusk we set off towards Stephansplatz, home of Stephensdom the largest Cathedral in Vienna. On the way we walked through the heart of the bustling urban core. Windows lit up selling everything from chocolates with Mozart's face to Gucci sandals. Cafes spilled from their walls out into the pedestrian walkway filled with elegant people sipping beer or coffee, unperturbed by pedestrians moving around them. Further on we heard singing and found the Opera house, with a theater size screen and speakers live broadcasting opera to the public. Seats facing the screen were full of people enjoying the show, featuring I think a nightclub owner trying to woo a much younger woman who herself is in the process of a sexual awakening. I'm not sure, but that's what it looked like.

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Taylor's friend had told her to be sure to try this specific chocolate cake called Sachertort that was first made in Vienna and is now world famous. We found a fancy cafe near the Opera house and sat down to find the cake was good, super sweet and tasted like it might have a compote or marmalade mixed into the batter. Later we were told the hotel we bought it is a total tourist trap, BUT it was the place this famous chocolate cake had originated.

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I spent the next day at the Schönbrünn Palace, home of the last Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Hapsburg family. The palace and gardens are very much Vienna's Versailles, large palace surrounded by acres and acres of gardens, alles and visual focal points.

This kind of Landscape Architecture is intended to express control over the landscape, nature and even the users by directing us in very specific directions. It's a very Imperial take on things. The walkways are huge, more at horse and carriage/truck proportions rather than human scale.

The design does its job though, I was awed more than once at the sheer size, not to mention the amount of work and planning that must go into keeping the gardens picture perfect, not to mention symmetrical. At the top of the gardens the Gloriette stands as a mirror to the palace, at the highest point in the gardens and sports an even higher viewing platform to see the property in its entirety.

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The next morning Taylor, her friend Johannes and I had breakfast near the train station where in my last minutes in Vienna got to experience Viennese coffee. Sort of like a cappuccino but with a few tweaks here and there to make a singularly delicious drink. Plus the waiters at the cafe were wearing tuxedos at 9:30 in the morning, which was pretty cool.

All in all, Vienna was amazing, but a day and a bit is seriously not going to cut it. Most cities strain against that tiny amount of time, but Vienna in particular is in its own caliber. The sheer amount of museums, opera, theater, food, coffee, gardens and art to check out is overwhelming. I would love to come back to Vienna in a few years with the time and cash to spend seeing all it has to offer but for the moment it's time to get going.