Austrian Adventure

Vienna is GORGEOUS. And it’s super efficient to get around. Given the lack of ability to get around easily in Algiers, it’s always SO nice to escape to a country with clean, straightforward, easy-to-navigate public transportation. And sidewalks. I never take sidewalks for granted anymore.

I arrived at about 7:30 in the evening, met my friend who flew in from Albania at the airport, and we made our way to our hotel. Which was AMAZING. Weird, but amazing. It had a sort of a youth hostel feel to it, but it was much nicer and was an actual hotel (bonus: it had a rooftop bar). Also, as we found out later, they had a free car for guests to use. The hotel had kind of a weird clown theme, bizarre, but it gave it character. In case you’re ever in the region, it’s called the 25hours Hotel.

Our hotel room decor

After checking in, we headed out to find food immediately (sausages, of course), and ended up taking a lovely evening stroll through a park and past Vienna’s Rathaus – beautifully lit up at night.

The next morning, while our friend from Riyadh was still in training and our friend from Sanaa was sleeping, my friend from Tirana and I went in search of coffee. We were hoping for Starbucks (I know, I know, why go to Starbucks when you’re in Europe – but when you live in countries without Starbucks, it’s OK.) However, we didn’t find one. Instead we found a funky hippie neighborhood that was way too cool for the 2 of us, but we found an amazing chocolate shop and then, finally, coffee! After a bit more of a walk around, it was back to the hotel for lunch and beer.

Then we got back out to enjoy the beautiful weather and wide open spaces plus the freedom to explore them, which none of us enjoy in the countries where we live. Have I mentioned how GORGEOUS Vienna is?

We ended up walking quite a ways, finding various parks, stopping for gelato, and finally ending up at Schloss Belvedere, one of the Habsburg palaces. We opted just to explore the gardens as opposed to going inside due to the beautiful day – and despite an enormous group of tourists waiting in line to take photos of themselves fondling the breasts of the nude statues, it was idyllic.

We also learned a little something about WWII history – outside the palace complex there was a massive monument with a bunch of Cyrillic writing on it. Evidently the Soviets kicked the Nazis out of Vienna. Who knew?

Actually probably lots of people knew. Just not us. Now we do, though!

We still had plenty of daylight left, so it was back to the hotel to try out the rooftop bar – it did not disappoint.

Happy hour was followed by some more walking about – this time hitting up the city center, passing by the Hofburg Palace (the Habsburg’s winter residence – they had a lot of residences. There was also a Starbucks across the street, so belated success on that search), and St. Stephen’s Cathedral, en route to amazing dinner at this little hole in the wall. We had asparagus soup and then basically a plate of meat and potatoes with mustard and shredded horseradish on the side. No shame. We were on vacation!

So that was day one of Austria – next up; Austrian ROAD TRIP.