Vienna Part 2

Stephansdom, the huge cathedral in the middle of the city at the heart of the old Holy Roman Empire.





The proper spelling for Vienna is Wien.  For some reason, English speakers spell the city as Vienna (German speakers, which Austrians are, pronounce the "W" as English speakers pronounce the "V", but I have no idea where the "a" at the end came from).  I took a walking tour organized by my hostel and it was pretty good, as the guide had lots of stories and anecdotes for us.  Apparently, the guy who invented the hot dog was a dude from Wien who had moved to Frankfurt.  Germans called it "Weiner" because the inventor was from Wien, while Austrians called it "Frankfurter" because it was invented in Frankfurt.  Apparently neither side wanted to take the credit for this fine culinary innovation, hahaha



The Kunsthistoriches Museum (literally, Art History Museum)



 

Highlights:

• Schloss Schonbrunn - The former summer palace of the royal family of the Holy Roman Empire.  I wouldn't mind spending my summers there!  :D
• Weiner schnitzel @ Figlmuller - Wein is world famous for it's weiner schnitzel, and no place is more famous than Figlmuller, even though they don't exactly do it in the traditional style.  Not only is the serving size enormous (see pictures below), but it's also delicious too, and the staff are super friendly, as it's still a small locally-owned operation.  I kept expecting Weiner schnitzel to contain sausage or hot dog until I recalled the the walking tour guide's story and realized that Weiner schnitzel just means Viennese schnitzel (the tour guide also emphazied that you eat this without sauce in Austria because, and I quote, "We're not Germans!").  But wait a minute...  so if Weiner schnitzel means Viennese schnitzel, then shouldn't the Viennese waltz be known as the...  Weiner waltz???
• Haus der Musik - As Vienna has made such outstanding contributions to music in the past (Mozart, Hadyn, and Beethoven immediately come to mind), I had to include some sort of musical component to my visit here.  I left this to the very last minute (8 pm the night before I left Vienna).  Fortunately, the Haus der Musik closes at 10 pm (no I wasn't just lucky, I planned it that way).  It was pretty cool and really made me wish I had some training in classical music so I could really appreciate it properly.  The thing I found most fun about this museum was the virtual orchestra, where you were able to pick up the conductor's baton and conduct (a virtual version of) the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra on a few symphonies.  If you waved too fast, the music would be played too fast and if you waved too slowly, then the music would be too slow.  Unfortunately, the system was pretty buggy and didn't pick up the movement of the baton.  This meant that everybody failed miserably and the bulk of the time, the orchestra was silent.  However, that was awesome because it led to the hilarious scene where the orchestra puts down their instruments and starts to yell at you.  I made sure to get video of that!



Schloss Schonbrunn

Part of the gardens at Schloss Schonbrunn.  Seriously, this place was huge...

Lowlights:

• Too much to do in Vienna, I didn't budget enough time for this city (never mind the whole country)!  I'll definitely be sure to come back again sometime :)

C'mon, that's gotta be some false advertising.  There's no way it's bigger than the plate...

Wow.  OK.  And that's not a small plate either...



All done!  :D



The famous Sacher cake!  Believe it or not, I saw imitators trying to copy this in Italy too (same name and everything).

Can't Miss:  I really want to say food but I'm going to go with the art & palaces.  Fortunately, many of the art museums are in old palaces so you get to kill two birds with one stone.  However, there really are a ton of museums and palaces, so I probably could have filled 4 or 5 days here!  Luckily for me, some musuems close late on selected nights (do your research before you arrive to make the best use of your time) so that helps you stretch your days out, especially when you're a late riser such as myself :)

The (probably unintentionally) creepy wax Mozart that composes a song based on your name (or whatever sequence of letters you choose to enter) at the Haus der Musik.

Here's your chance to conduct an orchestra!  Any kid who ever played with chopsticks at the table will know what I'm talking about...