Vienna Day One

Our hotel offered a free walking tour every Saturday at 10am. Luckily today is Saturday so I went and joined the tour while Helen had a sleep in. 

Just around the corner from our hotel is the Synagogue. This was under 24 hour guard at both ends of the street by police and army. The army were right outside our hotel. It's a shame this is necessary.

The walking tour was great, taking us through Vienna's first district through all sorts of narrow streets and back alleys and taking lots of shortcuts we generally would not venture down. It was a great introduction to the neighbourhood we were staying in, but in two hours we didn't actually walk too far away from our hotel. A particular highlight was the University Church, a hidden gem that was absolutely beautiful and so peaceful inside.

The tour ended in Stephensplatz. It was midday Saturday and it was chock full of people.

We would barely move. I managed to find somewhere to sit and contact Helen. On our walk we had passed many nice restaurants serving Wiener Scnitzel so I recommended one to Helen. We met halfway there. The restaurant was very busy but they fitted us in straight away, in a small table near the kitchen. We both had Wiener Schnitzel and it was everything we had expected. Made with veal, very authentic. We finished up with desserts of Apple Strudel and Chocolate Cake. 

Well fed, we went back to the hotel for a rest and a little bit of blog writing.

Later we ventured out to see more Christmas markets. We jumped on a tram that would take us to Belvedere castle. Along the way, we happened along the Parliament tram stop. The tram was packed with people, and we saw huge Christmas Markets outside, so decided to hop off and have a look.

The crowds were dense, moving slowly, and it took us ages to get to the markets. We passed a ice skating track. Not the usual rink, but a one-way track that meandered around the park. The crowds had to go around the track to get into the park.

We couldn't actually get near the markets due to the crowds, so instead managed to navigate to good some photo spots.

Next we had to push our way through the crowds back to the tram stop. This was no fun, this was an endurance test. We could not believe the crowds here and they seemed to be mostly locals rather than tourists. Even getting back on the team was a mission!

Now we made our way to the stop for Belvedere Palace and by now the crowds had thinned out. The walk was short, once inside the gates to the palace grounds we found a nice, quiet, low key markets. The food on offer was good, short queues, nice and quite! We shared mulled wine in a souvenir boot mug, a hot dog, and an apple pastry. 

The palace made a beautiful backdrop to these markets.

Next we made our way back to the hotel via trams. We were clever enough to swap team lines to avoid going past the Parliament stop again.