Hello from the lovely and HUGE city of Vienna! A far cry from where we've been.
We woke up this morning and got ready, planning to enjoy some breakfast and coffee in our hotel before the shuttle van picked us up 9. Well, make that 8. We got a call a minute past 8 that the van was downstairs waiting for us. Whoops.
We rushed to finish getting ready and raced downstairs, checking out and rushing to the very full van.
No coffee. Sigh. It was around a three hour drive and would have been gorgeous though it was really foggy and it obscured the views. We drove through the countryside and made our way to the city. Though it's only a couple hundred thousand more people than Prague, it feels so much larger and you notice you're there well before nearing the center city.
Our hotel is really well situated right in the downtown area near the Museum district and a block from the Naschmarkt-- a large open air market that's two city blocked and three rows. There's a lot of shops there from restaurants, bread and wine stores, pharmacy, meat markets, fish stands, candy, and all sorts of amazing treats. We were really hungry from the trip and no breakfast and grabbed sandwiches-- disappointed we didn't hold out as we saw so many great things after we got them! There's a lot of spice stands as well with some incredibly-smelling things as well. We wandered down to the museums and found the Museum of Fine Arts (Kunsthistorisches Museum). Unfortunately it was closed! Just our luck.
We walked around for a bit and a guy stopped us who was selling tickets to a Beethoven show. I was reluctant to buy as I prefer to go direct to avoid scams. We decided to make our way to the Opera House to see if we could get tickets for a show. We decided to take a tour of this impressive building. It's huge-- at least a couple of city blocks in each direction and really gorgeous on the outside with lots of carvings and pillars. Inside is impressive with marble and gold plating. Apparently 80% of the building was destroyed during World War II and was rebuit. You can see a difference in the ornateness of the rooms. One had a bust carved in the wall of every man who ever wrote an opera. The room was the most ornate. As we were standing waiting for our tour, I recognized a couple near us--turns out it was the couple from CT we met at the old town market in Prague two days earlier! How funny. We exchanged emails figuring there's a reason in a city of over a million, we ran into each other randomly again.
We decided to stop for a snack in the market and got a bunch of little bites including a stuffed zuccini, olives, and this incredible date stuffed with walnuts and prociutto. yum. Double yum. We grabbed a bottle of dry austrian wine and it was really great! Called Gruner Veltliner, which I heard of from a friend who went to Austria two years ago.
The tour was around an hour and we decided to look for tickets. There is a Puccini opera tomorrow, which we were told is very rare to see as the range required for the parts is so great that few people can play them. Unfortunately there were only two returned tickets left for the equivalent of $200. Instead we got ballet tickets for tonight to a show called Manon. It was a high-drama ballet, so similar in feel to many of the operas I've seen, which was surprising. It was well done and beautiful and the set was gorgeous. We sat next to a gal from Charlotte named Lisa who was really great. We enjoyed talking with her, so much in fact, that we grabbed dinner with her after the show and exchanged information! I love traveling and the amazing people you meet along the way.
Our hotel is Hotel Beethoven Wein and is really cute. There's a great sitting area with coffee and tea and a lovely view of an old opera house in the neighborhood. It's right off two busy streets but a block back so pretty quiet.
We walked home and got in late, but it was a really great day and we can sleep in a bit. Well, if I can, I suppose. Damn my being a morning person! Tomorrow should be a fun day.
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