Three Days in Vienna
On Our Own
Sunday 27 May - We flew from Venice with Air Austria. Small plane about 120 people. We were given a packet of heart-shaped crunchy cookie ‘bites’ plus a drink. We had an apple juice.
Landed without a hitch and found where we collected our 3-day passes that I had ordered online before we left home. Took a little working out for the bus into the centre, but finally found the correct bus and bought tickets from the machine.
At the end point of the bus route we only had to trail our cases across a bridge and down a road to the end and there was Hotel Stefanie. Very nice, elegant, but not overly so. Reception guy was nice and orderly took our cases upstairs. 
After a rest and sorting out our paperwork, we walked a short way down the street and found a café. It was after 3pm by this time and we hadn’t had lunch. Ordered a café Latte – which was very milky! And an open sandwich with apple, cranberries and bree cheese to share. Very tasty. Also shared an applecake which included cream and strawberries! Then we checked out the shops along the street and to see if there were any nice restaurants for dinner. Nothing really appealed so we are going to try the Hotel food tonight.
One good thing about changing our landline phone at home over to Lightwire, our internet provider. A friend had left a message on the phone and Lightwire emailed us that there was a message and attached the voice message as well so we heard what Jo had said! What service - and they had not told us about this added facility. We also received further voice messages which were again emailed, so we did not miss any important message left on home phone. Brilliant!
Dinner at the Hotel was very good. We first thought we’d dine in the garden room but someone was smoking, so we went inside and we were the only diners there! Very attentive young waiter. We had a Spritz Aperol to begin with (yes they are quite addictive!) He brought out some breads and two dishes of paté/cream spreads. The very dark bread was extra tasty. Eddie then had fish of the day – Char, which he enjoyed - sort of a salmon/trout type fish. I had a vegetable bagel which included some sweet potato chips which a light cheesy coating which were divine. I shared some with Eddie. The vegetable patties in the bagel, with Tzatziki sauce, was delicious but I couldn’t eat it all.
Monday 28 May – Fine, sunny with a high predicted to be 29°C!
Its 8:20am and we had breakfast in the Garden Room which was very nice. Smokers not there this morning.
Sorted out where to catch the Hop On Hop Off bus, but couldn’t do that until 10am. Got confirmation this morning on phone of the berth of our cruise ship, so all good. Eddie keeps saying he really likes this Hotel - and guess who researched and chose it?? Yours Truly!
We trotted off before 10am and found the bus stop and the bus arrived at 9:45am. Quite straight forward. Went upstairs to the front so we could see everything. Already quite hot but especially with the glass around us and no window to open. Found our later that if we sat further back we’d get open windows, but we enjoyed the front views. Got off at the State Opera and walked in the direction we were told for the Spanish Riding School. We passed the Albertina Gallery which I wanted to see later. After some misdirection we found the entry to SRS – then we discovered the training sessions were Tuesday – Saturday!! So we decided to go to the Schonbrunn Palace and Zoo today instead. Back to the State Opera where we caught the Yellow Line bus. Our Hotel is on the Red Line.
Took a while to get there but we got to look at the various buildings on the way. The Palace is Massive! Great expanse of paved area in front with a fountain pond that is of quite a size, but in comparison with its surroundings it looks very small. 
We decided we would go see the Zoo as there were crowds going into the palace. After much walking through some very nice rose gardens – the perfume was divine - and leafy, treed areas we passed the massive ‘greenhhouse’. We decided it would be too hot in there so we continued on. Finally we asked one of the gardeners directions to the zoo. There was a decided lack of direction signs. She pointed us in the right direction and we were there! After a toilet stop and a cool water refreshment – good thing we brought the insulated bottle – we wandered about a little and saw the pandas. We then decided to have a slightly early lunch while the café still had spare tables. I ordered the antipasto plate and Eddie had a roast beef and pickle baguette. As usual we shared our selections. We also had an Iced Coffee each as it was very, very hot by now! The was however, a little breeze on the terrace of the Kaiser Café.
We tried to see the tigers but they were elusive. We did however see giant tortoises and a Kea from NZ! The orangutans were sleepy as were the anteaters and I don’t blame them, we were getting very hot, sweaty and achy feet. Saw some capybara and also some gorgeous French donkeys – called Poitou Donkeys! They are apparently a very old breed and now endangered. I love donkeys so these creatures made up for my hotness and tiredness.
After a few more animals and another toilet stop we decided to find our way back to the bus stop outside the grand entrance of the Palace.
One interesting point – in the ladies toilets, on the inside of the doors, were beautiful over-sized photos of the various animals in the park. I took a photo of the door I was in as it was an owl, another favourite!
This time we found a direction sign to the ‘schloss’ (palace) so it did not take us as long to return. We certainly chose the hottest day for this! They were setting up a concert stage and lighting for a concert that evening so had to detour around some barriers. By the time the bus got back to the State Opera it was 4:30pm, and by the time we had ridden the red line bus back to our hotel it as after 5pm, when we staggered from the lift and collapsed in our room.
After reviving cool showers, change of clothes and an apple juice from the minibar we felt ‘new people’.
I searched out restaurants close to us – didn’t want to walk far – and found one just over the bridge that had been there since mid 1400’s - The Greichenbeisl in Fleischmarkt. Famous people who have eaten there includes Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms and mark Twain. Many have signed a wall inside over the years. If its good enough for them it must be OK for us, we decided.
We ate outside under large umbrellas. Had a traditional Austrian dinner – Weiner Schnitzel and salad plus a shared apple strudel. We had a Spritz Aperol while we waited – notice a theme here?? The Weiner schnitzel was huge! Covered the whole plate. Eddie managed to eat all of his but I could not. It was super delicious however. Very light veal with a lovely crumbed coating and lots of lemon juice. Then it was only a 10 minute walk back to the Hotel.
29 May - We are getting good at catching the HOHO bus. We have a 3-day Vienna Pass and you can use the buses as often as you like for the whole 3 days. We first had to walk across the bridge to the Apotheke (chemist) to get some more Ibuprofen as my back was playing up due to the bad bed in Venice – only poor sleep during whole trip.
We once again took the bus to the State Opera (Staatsoper). We knew where to go this time to get to the Spanish Riding School. Crowds!! We were shown a place to stand by one of the SRS workers, but someone in the multi-line (!) asked if we had tickets. I showed her our Vienna Passes and she told us we had to go to the ticket office to get tickets issued. Eddie stayed in ‘line’ so we wouldn’t lose our place and I got our tickets. After some wait the crowd started moving. By the time we got into the arena area it was standing room only even though it was just after 10am and it doesn’t open until then! It’s only the training sessions and are from 10 – 12noon. We decided to leave just after 11am. After using the ‘loo’ – and why oh why do the toilets always have to be down long flights of stairs, that of course I must come back up!! We had coffee and strudel in the café there and thus sustained we went back to the Albertina Gallery.
Fantastic! Paintings I know and love and artists I am fond of. Picasso (early ones), Monet, Renoir, Seurat, Chagall, Kandinsky and Robert Delauney! I took art as one of my specialist subjects at Teachers’ College, and I had undertaken an in-depth study of Delauney so I was super excited when I moved into one of the rooms and saw his original paintings hanging there! So much better than prints or photos in a book. We did however buy the book of the collection for a momento of all we had seen. A connoisseur art collector, Herbert Batliner and his wife bequeathed over 500 paintings they had collected over the years to the Albertina. Coming to Vienna was worth it, just for this!
Then, as a change of pace, we had lunch at an Aussie Café! Nice chicken salad and apple juice – again! Love apple juice – I’m going to ‘subscribe’ when we get home!
Slowly walking down the street to Stephansdom, we checked out some gift shops. I finally bought 3 tealight candle holders – one with owls, one cats and the 3rd Viennese street scene.
The Dom is amazing! And I also took photos of some of the other architecture in the area. Looking at the map we realized we were only 10 minute from ‘our’ bridge.
So a rest, wash and relax in our room with some music from my phone and another apple juice from the minibar.
The area the hotel is in seems to be strongly Jewish and as we walk from Hotel to bus top we have passed several groups and male individuals in traditional Hassidic dress. We decided to try a Jewish café for dinner that we had passed yesterday. Nice lamb chops and Israeli salad with a very nice Israeli wine that the waitress recommended. She was rather slow getting back to us with the bill. Kept talking animatedly with a group of Jewish people that came in after us. We were probably the only gentiles in the place, but it was a lovely change of experience and the wine and food was fantastic! I said ‘shalom’ to her as we were leaving and the gentlemen at the table by the door stood up and bowed to us.
30 May – Last day in Vienna
Bad night for me! ‘Snoro’ was in fine form!! Got up at 6am and had showers before going to breakfast about 8am. By 9:30am we were packed and ready for our last part day in Vienna on our own.
We caught the usual Red line bus to stop 13 and then picked up the blue line bus to the Dorauturm – the Danube Tower, which is sort of like the Sky Tower in Auckland. Great views up there and the lifts move very fast! There were renovations happening around the ground level so to exit we had to walk through a ‘tunnel’ of construction ply. There is going to be a bigger? Better? Reception area and a ground level tearoom.
Then we had a short wait for the return bus and to Prater Park with the giant Ferris wheel. We didn’t go on it but we did go into Madame Tussauds as it was free entry with our Vienna Pass, whereas the London site is not included in the London Pass. I took several photos of notable characters – Freud, Schindler, Elvis of course , Freddy Mercury and I took a photo of Eddie in the Oval Office with Obama! We also took photos of each other sitting in a ‘throne’ while the Queen stood next to us! Couldn’t happen in real life, that’s for sure. I remembered our young friend, Brandon, from the Italy tour, when we came across a very good likeness of Audrey Hepburn seated at a café table having some champagne.
We were going to have a gelato but the ice cream shops didn’t look that appealing so we went to a café and had a nice Sisi Caffe (Hazelnut liqueur and cream) with a toasted sandwich. Lovely.
We thought there were toilets in the gift shop area but no. Eddie however, found a nice Vienna T-shirt and I bought a nice violet pen with Vienna scene on it. I tend to collect pens. we received our purchases in the bag I photo'd. There were also lots of people wearing the T-shirt! 
Then it was back to stop 13 and the redline bus was there as we got off! This time I grabbed some ‘ears’ and we listened to the commentary concerning the buildings we were passing until we got to our stop.
We used the hotel toilets before retrieving our cases that they had stored for us. The nice man at the desk rang for a taxi – 2 -3 minutes he said and he was right! Very efficient service in Vienna. The driver was very good and parked right outside the cruise ship Artistry II, beside the gangway.
Our time at Vienna was good as we chose not to rush and see everything, but what we did see was very good and very interesting and we are happy we had this opportunity.
Next tour Tale - Avalon River Cruise.