Road Trip day 5 (Vienna)

Our time in Vienna felt was brief, and a broken dryer at the hotel caused it to be even shorter. 

We woke this morning to a rather lack luster breakfast (particularly when compared to the lovely assortment that we have had at our previous hotels) and a dryer that was not drying the clothing that we had placed in it. Trying to fit in time to do laundry was certainly not my first choice, but with clothing that had been thrown up on (from our bout of car sickness earlier on in the trip) it was time to get them washed. Jason had snuck out early in the morning to get the laundry started so that the clothing would be all done by the time that we left the hotel after breakfast. A great plan, truly, it was. However, when Jason went to check on the laundry and bring it back up to pack into our bags he discovered that it was still sopping wet. There was an error stating that the water compartment (it was a condenser dryer) was full, so he checked it to see that there was no water in fact in there. So he started the dryer again and we waited….and waited…and waited. After going through a couple more errors and seeing that the dryer was still not working properly we conceited defeat, bagged our wet clothing and loaded it into the car. Waiting around at the hotel was not exactly how we had planned to spend a good portion of our morning so we were pretty eager to head into the city centre of Vienna and start checking things out. 

admittedly, our first impressions of Vienna were not particularly good. An opera toilet? Really?

Then there were men is cheesy theatre costumes roaming outside the Vienna Opera House practically pouncing on every tourist in sight. We were very hopeful that the pushy "actors" had nothing to do with the Wien Staatsoper (they don't). 

Due to our shortage on time we decided to check out the historic downtown. We were able to see quite a bit in a short amount of time including;

The Wien Staatsoper (the opera house), which I'll talk more about later.

museums and monuments,

a former residence of Mozart,

St Stephen’s Cathedral, (isn't the roof neat? It is clearly not the original, the original roof was damaged during world war II and was repaired in the 1950's with tiles that were donated by the Viennese citizens. )

the Spanish Riding school,

and Hofburg Palace in the museum district

The Demel Bakery (which is a beautiful bakery that is over 200 years old. This is where all the esteemed ladies and royalty would come for a cup of hot chocolate. It really is a beautiful shop, more so than any other bakeries we've been in. See the K. u. K. on the sign? That means König und Kaiser, which means it was good enough for the king :) ) 

among a few other things. ((plague statue, Demel Bakery, anti-fascism monument..)

the plague statue

the ditch (or at least the large area that was used as a ditch by the romans which is now a large market square)

no idea on this one. Everyone else was taking pictures, so I did too.

We stumbled on this in the park.

I loved peering in all the shop windows and seeing the traditional wool outfits. They are beautiful. 

and we even stopped in the Manner store to pick up some classic Manner to save for later (we used these as our wedding favours, so they have some sentimental aspect to them to).

By far, our favorite place of the morning was the green domed church, St. Peter's Church, and we were fortunate to arrive just as the morning services were coming to a close. 

Despite the smaller size of this church, the inside is decorated so intricately and skillfully that it takes your breath away. 

Perhaps the most incredible aspect of this church is the painting on the roof. We all gazed skyward, with our jaws dropped, for a few minutes while we took in the stunning painting. 

Naturally, Jason felt compelled to ensure that we had a photo of the beautiful organ as well.

Lunch time rolled around quickly and we settled on Starbucks. It felt almost like I was betraying the fact that we are traveling in a new city with new tastes and places by sitting in a Starbucks and eating a bagel sandwich but seeing that it was the first place we found with indoor seating, kid friendly, clean bathrooms, vegetarian options and something other than fried food, it won. Sad.

We were pretty excited for our activity following lunch time as we were heading back to the Wien Staatsoper to go inside for a tour. 

With Milayla in the wrap to help her fall asleep easier, I handed the camera over to Jason to play photographer (which means Milayla and I even got to be in a couple photos :) ). 

this is the royal stairway. Only the elite members of society walked up these stairs. We got to walk up them a little bit later :) 

she is out like a rock.

The Opera House consists of some original parts and some reconstructed parts (due to damage incurred throughout wars). It is pretty easy to tell the difference. Here are a few photos of the reconstructed parts:

And then step into the original parts...beautiful! 

See those balconies up top? That is where the lower class people would look down at the aristocrats and royalty and see what was going on in the world of the elite.

Believe it or not, when the opera house was originally built, the architects/designers were highly criticized for constructing such a hideous building. 

And then we entered into the main theatre where the crew was setting up for the evening show. 

funky photo of the chandelier 

The tour was wonderful. Walking through that building gave me chills. Music and ballets played in my head. I love the theatre, I love the stage and I love the passion and excitement that constantly resonates within the walls of well-loved theatre.

With the close of our tour (our children were showered with compliments of how well-behaved and attentive they were – the most important compliments coming from us) it was time for us to head back to our car and start our journey to Salzburg. Not before stopping by the Sacher Hotel could we leave though. Jason was quite looking forward to trying a special Sacher Torte (a protected famous chocolate cake recipe) from the Sacher hotel. Jason quite enjoyed it; I personally found it overwhelmingly sweet, though I am not particularly fond of cake in the first place. 

As we all loaded into the car, I asked Atticus what he thought of Vienna and he was hesitant to answer, until he realized there were grapes to be had after we talked about our time here, then it was an emphatic “I really like it. It went really good!”. Yes, we did enjoy our brief time in Vienna, at least the small amount that we were able to see. It was a unanimous decision, however, that the city is just a tad too grandiose for what we typically like. And it is certainly a very busy city, though quite easy to get around.

With that said though, the Staatsoper really won us over and made us all fall in love with Vienna. I hope the day will soon come that we can attend a show there together. Or maybe even attend the world famous Vienna Opera Ball (the tickets for that only cost a small fortune). In any case, we loved it.