Anniversary Trip: Vienna

Our thirteenth (I can't believe it has been that many years already) wedding anniversary was earlier this month and to celebrate we took a trip to Vienna, Bratislava and Nuremberg. 

Upon arrival in Vienna, we grabbed dinner around the corner from the Airbnb at a place called Coconut Curry. We had some delicious sushi and Asian dishes. One thing I thought was neat, and then noticed it at other restaurants and cafes around Vienna, was that at the outdoor tables the restaurants provided blankets. It was a slightly chilly evening, but I am sure the closer and closer we get to winter the more necessary those blankets become! 

Vienna is set up in different zones and we stayed in the zone with Prater Park which is a very old amusement park. The Ferris wheel is iconic to Vienna and promises great views of the area. Since I am afraid of heights, this was not something I wanted to try out for myself. The park is completely free to enter so we walked around to see all the rides and other typical amusement park booths. 

St. Stephan's Cathedral is at the center of the 1st District and where all the tourists flock to. It has a really interesting roof made up of a patterned tile. 

This is a neat art installation inside the Cathedral. I love that it's included as a statement of how the Cathedral is still a modern part of the city and that it still values art. Cathedrals and churches throughout Europe are great places to see amazing pieces of art and architecture, but they don't always feature anything new. 

St. Stephen's has two towers that visitors can visit for views of the city. One of the towers is only accessible by elevator and it was broken on the day of our visit, so we visited the top of the other tower which is accessible by climbing over 300 stairs. Needless to say, I was a bit tired after that climb. But we got that promised view over the city. 

We visited the Butterfly House and saw a bunch of beautiful butterflies fluttering about. This would be a great place to visit on a cold day as it was nice and toasty inside. However, after visiting the butterfly house in Niagara, this one felt so small. 

Vienna, like many old cities, is filled with statues. I have no idea what this one is representing (if only I remembered more symbols from my college art history classes), but we loved the faces and drama of this one. 

We did not take any other pictures inside, but on the rainy day of our visit we headed over to the House of Music to walk around. It had a lot of interactive exhibits and information about some of Vienna's famous composers and musicians. At the very end, you enter a hallway that is dark except for this neon sign. I loved how, after all the music and sounds from the museum, they offered a relatively quiet space to reset before heading back out into the bustling city.

One of the highlights of our trip was a pastry tour that we booked through Airbnb. Unlike our food tour in Prague, we had two other couples on the tour with us which led to some fun conversations and a little less awkwardness. We visited several places all over Vienna and tried a variety of traditional Viennese desserts. This picture is from one of our favorites where we tried dumplings and strum. Strum is from the first harvest of grapes for wine and has a low alcohol content and is very sweet. It is only available for a limited time, though, so our trip was timed perfectly to try it!