a good day

So we had made some tentative plans to go to Vienna sometime this weekend or next, and we woke up on Saturday, and just decided to go. The weather was mostly nice, and we still had time to catch the train. So we got all our stuff ready and left. After a few miscommunications by the bus schedule and some frantic bus catching, we finally made it to the train station with about 5 minutes to spare. We boarded the train and were off for another country.

We got to Vienna (Wien) where it was sunny, and nice… nice enough to take my coat off for the day. At first glance out of the train station, it didn’t look all that impressive. It was mostly like any other ordinary city. As we made our way towards the center of town, with no set destination in mind, we walked past the the Belvedere, a huge palace right near the train station. Immediately we were floored. This thing had all you could want from a historical building, sculptures, gold, marble, huge garden, you name it, it had it.

We left the grounds and headed toward the ring. The ring (Ringstraße) is a strip of roads that encircles the main part of the city. Apparently there are a lot of really cool buildings and parks along the ring. As we neared the ring, we started to get hungry, and what better place to eat than a street vendor selling bratwurst…  It was probably the best bratwurst I had ever eaten, mine was mildly spicy, and Chelsea’s had cheese in it. Both of them were amazing. As we continued on to the ring, we noticed that around every corner was a new photo opportunity, every single building in the city was worth taking a picture of. We sat in a park, and made our way around the ring, and true to form, it had some amazing buildings. We then started making our way towards the center of town, where St. Stephen’s Cathedral was.

As we walked through town, the streets were incredibly narrow and tall, like a man-made slot canyon. We walked through a couple of Easter markets where they were selling chocolates and anything and everything egg shaped. We finally made it to the center of town, and as we rounded the corner, we saw St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the roof was amazing, all sorts of crazy designs, and the tower was huge. We stayed there for a bit, and walked through the cathedral once. I have never been inside a church of this magnitude before and it was pretty amazing. The ceiling was forever high, and had really cool columns, we then headed out as we were getting pretty tired and wanted to go home.

We got to the train station with about 2 minutes to get to the train, so we ran to the train and headed home. Just as we got home, it started to rain. So we barely made it. Here are some pics:

One image to note, is the one where it looks like a house was built on top of another buildings tower. Yeah, I couldn’t figure it out either…