Strolling through Vienna

This city is amazing. I have never seen so many enormous things all in the same place in my life. Walking through the cobblestone streets of the old town is a truly humbling experience, and sadly nothing that can be truly captured with a camera. Royal palaces spanning three city blocks are bordered by majestic arches, rows of stone statues fifty feet tall, cascading fountains, and "normal" churches that dwarf most cities' main cathedral. All the while, around seemingly every corner is a live performer of some sort - and not your everyday guitarist that you would see in most other places. We heard beautiful renditions of Beethoven (including my favorite movement of the Moonlight Sonata), Vivaldi, Schubert and Mozart while sipping Austrian espresso, strolling through shopping plazas and staring dumbly at our surroundings.

The whole town is music oriented (not surprising to anyone who knows anything about Vienna) Our first night in town we stumbled into a live rock performance in a basement bar, and concerts, opera and musicals are running daily in the hundreds of venues within the inner city alone. We packed pretty much all of our sightseeing of the inner city into the first day there, wandering from cathedral to palace to garden with our jaws visible hanging. That evening we stopped for dinner at a real local wine tavern, and were treated to probably the best goulash I've ever had. Apparently Austrian and Hungarian goulash are a bit different, based on paprika and other spice proportions, but the details are lost to me. Regardless, it was unbelievable. We stayed for a few rounds of wine, which was also amazing. Vienna, actually, is known for its white wine, and although I normally don't like white wine, both times we tried it here it was very, very good. The atmosphere of the restaurant was fitting for the back streets of Vienna - lots of closely huddled intellectuals engaged in intense conversation about god-knows-what.

The next day we checked out the crown jewels, an enormous collection of the most over-the-top jewelry, Catholic relics, robes, crowns and swords I've ever seen. We were pretty dazzled. We also tried the famous Sachertorte - a chocolate torte made in a particular hotel that has become so popular worldwide that they sell something like 350,000 of them a year. It lived up to the hype in our opinion - a tangy dark chocolate served with whipped cream (which they put on pretty much everything in Austria.)

All in all, Vienna definitely lived up to its reputation - strolling through the city streets at night as got to be one of the (many) highlights of this trip. We headed out early the next morning on our way to an old castle before our trip up the Danube - but more on that later!