Day 53-55 - Vienna (Wien)

Sunday 12 September 2004, 19:30 CET

I've had an amazing time in Vienna. It's an interesting place - it's truly an international city (with all the good and bad implications of that designation) and is full of historical buildings, green parks and little cobblestone-paved streets to explore. The people are really nice in this corner of the world, and traffic is pretty much as orderly as most parts of Canada I visited. The transport is amazingly efficient and cheap - even on a Sunday I had no problem getting around on the metro (U-Bahn) and buses.

The place to go here is definitely the area bordered by the Ringstrasse - the "Innere Stadt" (Inner City) - and in particular the west and southwest sections of it. In that, you will find the Kunsthistorische (art and history museum), the Hofburg (a massive web of old buildings which formerly served as a palace and fortress), Stefansdom (the massive church at the heart of the city), the Rathaus (City Hall), the Parliament building with the Athena Statue at the front (currently closed for about a year for maintenance), and the list goes on.

From there, you can easily explore the inner suburbs by tram. Plenty of shopping opportunities but also a random scattering of amazing-looking historic buildings and churches. There's also Schönbrunn, a few U-Bahn stations away from the city, which was the main palace used by the Habsburg dynasty from the 1700s onwards. I spent a half-day just at this one place alone - for about €8, you can explore the inner rooms of the Schönbrunn where Maria Theresa and her descendants lived. It's an amazing insight into the lives of the old royal families in Europe - even some of their individual personalities come across somewhat in the rooms they inhabited.

One tip for any travellers to Vienna - at most major train stations, you can buy a "Vienna Card" (Wien-Karte in German) at the ticket office for €16.90. This gives you 72 hours (from validation, not from purchase) of unlimited travel, discounts to museums (including but definitely not limited to the Kunsthistorische, the Albertina which I wanted to visit but didn't, and Schönbrunn) and some other goodies.

For me personally, I've managed to see the places where my mother and grandfather spent their childhoods, put flowers on the family grave, and see what those same places looked like 50-70 years ago (in many cases, not very different). It's weird seeing photos of my mum as a young girl of maybe 3 or 4 in front of buildings I've now actually been to. We also went up into the Vienna Woods (Wienerwald) where the city ends (quite literally - you see a sign with "Wien" stroked out as you enter the area) and the forests and mountains begin. While most roads in Vienna are just like roads anywhere else, the one going up to Kahlenberg was cobblestone-paved - it was a pretty wild drive :) The other weird bit is Grinzing where you get wineries right in the middle of the suburb.

Anyway, off to Budapest tomorrow. It's almost like a measure of degrees where each section of the journey is a step further into the fire - first Canada, then Europe, and now towards the not-so-well-off southeastern parts of Europe and Turkey. the pattern is, of course, broken by a luxury holiday in Singapore at budget rates, immediately prior to my return to Perth. I am getting to the stage where I'm enjoying what I'm doing but am starting to miss my homeland a bit and am keen to get back, but not before having some more adventures. I'll keep you all posted as I go.