Vienna, Austria Day 1 & 2

May 1st is labor day in all of Europe, and in Slovenia it amounts to a 6-day weekend. With such a generous gift of time I thought I should get out of town and see a bit of Europe. I originally planned on going to Plitvice National Park in Croatia but it was not readily apparent how to get there so I went down to the train station a browsed the cheap and timely fares available for the weekend. Vienna was on sale for 75$ round trip and 6 hours each way. After that was settled I browsed the internet for a couple hours and picked a hostel that was outside of town but only $100 for 3 nights and had a lovely view.

Somewhere between Ljubljana and Maribor in Slovenia.

The hostel is the little building on the left. It is situated next to Schloss Wilhelminenberg, a small castle that is now a hotel and public park overlooking Vienna. I managed to figure out how to get from the train station to the hostel via a combination of U-Bahn and bus without too much trouble.

I was a bit tired from the day of traveling and wanted to chill out at the hostel but I managed to drag my butt back down to the city center and wander around a bit. I was curious so see how much I recognized. This is the Rathaus, or city hall. It was decked out for a political rally of some sort that would be happening on the 1st. Unfortunately I had to watch the time while in the city because the bus up to the hostel didn't run very late so I headed back up and found a restuarant nearby for dinner.

The outdoor seating was a little dark but atmospheric. I had some schnitzel with potato pancakes and tomato sauce.

Nightcap of Kings: Budvar and Austrian Funyons.

The next morning I took my sweet time getting ready much to the disappointment of the woman trying to clean the rooms for the day. Once in town I rode the streetcar around the Ring Strasse, the circular avenue surrounding the Inner Stadt. It was a good way to get the lay of the land. Then I wandered up the the main church Stephansdom. Like the one in Florence it was in the middle of being restored as you can see from the black and white surfaces.

Inside they had covered up the plain windows with colored gels so there was a riot of color on the walls.
I peeked into a few more churches like this one where the pews had women carved into them.

I remained in that same church for a while because someone was rehearsing on the organ and I've always wanted to hear one played in a gothic style space.

After that I visited the Albertina which had a great collection of Impressionist and Post Impressionist pieces (not photos allowed), then Starbucks to get some $6.50 iced tea, then to a movie theater to see The Avengers because it was released a week earlier in Austria than it was in Slovenia.

Back at the hostel I decided to try the fancy restaurant at the neighboring castle. This is a salad topped with fried feta cheese (or shall we call it fried gold?).