I cannot BELIEVE it has already been a month since I left for Europe for the most epic 2-week long vacation with Mark! Makes me sad... but happy, because if time moves by quickly, before you know it he will be finally moving back home to the USA!! Woohoo!!
So when planning this trip, I was originally told by multiple people that Vienna was NO good - that there wasn't much to do, and they just felt bored being there. So of course, we only booked ourselves a day and a half there - but we seriously regretted it, because we LOVED Vienna! Such a jam-packed short time in Austria, but it really was a beautiful city, and we felt like there were so many places to go and see - so many palaces & museums, especially.
Getting to Austria was definitely NOT as easy as the rest of the cities we went to. Because I believe of the mountains between Austria and Italy, we couldn't simply just take a train from Venice to Vienna - we would've had to take a bus for 4 hours, then connect that to a train for 4 hours. Instead, we just decided to fly Berlin to Vienna! Mark's trying to figure out the German safety card information :)
When we got there, we were so tired - but went out to dinner, and decided to check out St. Stephens catherdral at nighttime, since we would be pressed for time for our 1 full day in Vienna. Um, REALLY glad we went at night! Check out how creepy but AMAZING St. Stephens looks at night. Reminds me of Halloween ... we also took an elevator up to the outside top of a cathedral, where they had built a viewing platform on the roof. I am terrified of heights... rawr.
The next day we decided to start out the day with Belvedere Palace, which is also a museum. However, love that Vienna is such an old, beautiful city.. but with all of this urban modern art in random areas of the city.
This sign relates to our lives, I told Mark :) Total Living by living it up with massive amounts of travel this year!
As soon as they take the art out of Belvedere Palace... it's my new home.
After Belvedere, we headed over to Schobrunn Palace. However, story for the rest of our lives ALERT... along the way we got stopped by the metro 'police' because we apparently did not have the correct ticket to be riding on the train. So when you buy a ticket on their little ticket terminals, they give you the option between full/half price. Well why the HECK would this American not choose half price!!!! ... Turns out it's only for kids and dogs. Because dogs need to be charged to ride the train..... Haha anyways, I was able to 'make nice' with the metro police woman and convince her that yes we had no idea what was going on because we were tourists, and she let us go with only ONE 100 Euro charge for violating the law. Yes Mark, that's right, I saved us another 100 Euro!!!! :D
So that's my little negotiation-skills claim to fame.
Schobrunn had these amazing gardens with hedge mazes, CRAZY cool playgrounds, mirror mazes, etc. Of course we had to go check that out for at LEAST an hour and a half... and not go see the actual palace because of it bahaha.
After that, we took the train back into the city on the CORRECT train pass, and walked around the city center for a long time. We ended up hitting up the Albertina museum, where I got a picture in the EXACT same spot where 'Before Sunrise' was filmed!!! My new little claim to fame.
After seeing the Albertina, we decided to walk over to the 'Rathaus', which is sort of like Vienna's city hall if I'm not mistaken. Anyways, we got INCREDIBLY lucky because they were having a beer/wine festival in front of the Rathaus, so how could we NOT go!!! That was just some plain amazing luck right there.
One of my last favorite parts about Austria (besides my palaces and Austrian beer) was all of the Easter markets that popped up at least every 10-15 blocks in the city center. We saw one earlier in the day at Schobrunn Palace as well, but after we saw the last one after the beer/wine festival, I understood how celebrated a holiday Easter is in Central Europe. There were Easter markets in every city we hit up after Vienna, too! I now massively regret getting a few of the ornament wooden painted Easter eggs they were selling everywhere. Oh well, maybe next year :D
After an amazing 1.5 days in Vienna, we took the train to the Czech Republic to visit Prague for the first time, EVER! On the most epic trip, ever!!!!
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