Blogmas Day 2: A Weekend in Vienna.

A couple of weeks ago I went to Vienna for the weekend with some friends, although you wouldn't know it because I barely posted it anywhere. Partly as the weekend was so exhausting- there was a lot of walking! That weekend we walked in total around 25 miles! When deciding where we wanted to visit Vienna admittedly wasn't first on our list but once we looked into it, we decided to give it ago and we weren't disappointed. 

Day One:

It was a very early start as we headed for the airport at 5am to catch our flight for 7. The overall flight was a pretty good one although at 2 hrs 15 mins it was slightly longer than we first thought. We landed and as we were only travelling with hand luggage, we whizzed through the airport to find a train that would take us into the centre as the airbnb we were staying in was around a 10 minute walk.

The apartment was really really lovely, quirky but stylish at the same time and not too big or small. Not wanting to waste any time we freshened up and headed out, not really too sure where we were going but just wanting to find some food and explore a bit, and explore we did. That afternoon alone we walked over 10 miles. We hit up a spar for some pain au chocolate (shortly followed by a quick stop at McDonalds) and our first stop was Karlskirche, a baroque church which we actually stumbled upon by accident. There were the beginnings of christmas markets everywhere but I'm guessing we were a week or so early as nothing had been properly set up yet which was a shame.

A super quick stop as there wasn't much to see and we started walking again, we stumbled across St Stephens Cathedral which was shockingly big standing at 446 feet at it's highest point, as it stands on the ruins of two earlier churches, parts of it seemed to be under construction. It soon started to get dark and we had two more stop we wanted to see before dinner, The Hundertwasserhaus an expressionist land mark, and the Kunst Haus Wien museum, which was just round the corner. It got a lot darker much quicker than we expected so we weren't able to get the 'insta goals' picture of our dreams but quickly decided to go back the following day.

It was getting colder and colder and we were walking around for ages trying to find somewhere to eat, we settled for a cosy looking Italian place called Cafe Pizzeria Restauranta Trimelli for dinner which was a great choice, I chose a spinach and feta cheese pizza which was delicious. The whole place was lovely, polite staff and dimly lit with candle light it wasn't long before I was in a food coma and feeling super sleepy. On our way home, at 7:30 on a Friday night I might add We're wild ones. We nipped into spar to pick up some wine and snacks before heading back to the apartment for the evening as it had been a super long day! 

Day Two:

We started off our day yet again with Croissants from spar before heading to the train as our first stop was Schonbrunn Palace, which we arrived at after almost getting arrested and some how getting out of a 110 euro fine, for travelling without a ticket, which I might add was a genuine confused honest mistake! The palace was huge and relatively busy which made taking any good pictures hard, we walked around the grounds and gardens, which were also huge, before heading back to the train and onto our next destination, somewhat simple...or so we thought. Due to some sort of issue or delay our train wasn't turning up and unsure what to do or where to go a lovely German lady adopted us, despite speaking no English and had us follow her on lots of trains and to different stations as we had no idea where we were going and luckily she was going to roughly the same place, if it wasn't for her we'd probably still be at the same station right now. We headed back to the Kunst Haus Wien museum for more pictures as it was too dark the previous evening. We then headed to a roof top bar... which unfortunately ended up being closed so we found another, got to the top and this time it was open...but the outside part was closed and as all we really wanted was a picture we decided it wasn't worth it to pay for over priced cocktails and ended up in mcdonalds yet again...typical brits abroad.

 We then hit up a few shops, such as Zara and forever 21 and then after walking around for what seemed like hours trying to find a place to eat, we eventually ended up finding another Italian place, called Cafe Ombra which didn't look like much but had delicious pasta and a super chilled relaxed atmosphere, the staff were also very welcoming and nice. I went for a dish called Cacio Pepe which was spaghetti with hard sheeps cheese, butter, oil and black pepper, obviously not healthy whatsoever but super delicious, with a mojito to wash it down with. As we had been walking all day, we were all exhausted and still had about an hours walk to get back to the apartment, we were all still really hungry but unfortunately all the supermarkets had closed, luckily as we were about 5 mins away from home we found a kebab place that had delicious potato wedges and took them back to the apartment to finish off with the leftover wine from the previous night.

Day Three:

Day three was home time, we had a bit of time before our afternoon flight, so we headed out for the last time and took a walk to Belvedere Palace exploring the grounds before heading off to brunch. We chose a place called Ulrich and I honestly don't think we could have found a nicer place. The atmosphere was relaxed and cosy and the staff were really friendly. The food was delicious and very reasonably priced, I went for the 'vegan wake up' which was a courgette and sweetcorn fritter, cashew nut sour cream, beetroot hummus, grilled mushrooms, vegetable sticks, avocado, tomato, mini porridge with fruit and a mini green machine smoothie with an iced coffee to wash it all down with. Super filling and a nice size!

  After brunch we had a little bit of time to spare so walked down to the museum quarter and strolled around for a bit but as it was Sunday everywhere seemed to be closed, so we popped into spar to get some presents to take home and then headed to catch a train to the airport and just like that our little weekend getaway was over.  If you're looking for a place to visit I'd definitely recommend Vienna, the architecture is amazing and there are tons of hidden little gems all around the city, it's also not a very busy or touristy place, or at least wasn't when we went, so if you struggle with busy places Vienna might be for you. I really enjoyed myself and would definitely want to go back again one day.

Have you ever been to Vienna? Or would you like to go? Let me know! - Anna x