Vienna, Austria

Its a fantastic feeling to write (again) after a gap of two years! 100% true that life's priorities changes after marriage, I felt it, time shrinks but enjoyably!! Even then, after every trip in the past two years, somewhere in the corner of my heart, I was longing to write :) and it was catalysed by a good friend's request, and here I start writing again...
I am happy to mention that Austria is my TENTH country visited in EU!! When I was studying Geography in schools, I had a wish to see these countries/cities: to see the people, understand their culture, taste their food etc., I should thank God for fulfilling the wishe(s) and its a wonderful feeling!
Vienna (Austria) was on the list to visit for a long time but couldnt find a right opportunity to do it. For a change, this Vienna trip was not a long planned one. Even a week before, we were not knowing that next weekend is going to be at Vienna. On Monday, casually browsed for offers in DB (German train system) and found a cheap offer and booked it right away. Even the hotels were cheaper (I was expecting the hotel costs to be higher due to late booking) and  found a 4 Star hotel with good tram connectivity with 10mins city center travel. The downside of the cheap train ticket was a travel time of 9.5h from Hamburg. Even though it is a InterCity Express (ICE), German's fastest trains, the distance of 1150kms (via Passau) took 9.5h (calculate yourself the speed of the train). I took a day-off to feel Vienna better, frankly, two complete days weren't enough but still not worse! Austria's official language is German and hence there was no language problem in this trip. Nevertheless, the German spoken by the locals were much different than that of in northern Germany, though, Austrian were more comfortable to switch to English.

Reached Westbahhof by early evening and directly checked into the hotel. Unlike most EU cities, Vienna doesnt have a central railway station, it has different stations at west, south and middle with the new Vienna Central Station planned to open in 2014. After a quick refreshment, reached schloss schoenbrunn (castle with beautiful garden). The name Schönbrunn means "beautiful spring", and it matched to its definition. After visiting 3 castles in Europe (including the much famous Bavaria's Neuschwanstein) frankly I lost interest to visit an european castle. These castles are luxurious from a western point of view, but nothing when compared to Indian palaces. Hence, we roamed the gardens and the Gloriette.

The garden axis points towards a 60 meters higher hill, which is crowned by the Gloriette structure. The Gloriette is dedicated as a Monument to 'Just War', that led to peace. Read about 'Just War' at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_War, I am sure you will be surprised that Indian Epic "the Mahabharata" is referred for it!! Lately, I started loving symmetric huge scale constructions. The castle, garden and the gloriette structure were designed in complete symmetric and it was a wonderful opportunity to try some good photographic angles. We climbed the hill and reached the Gloriette for where we had a magnificent view of Vienna.

The beautiful romantic garden was vast and it will take at least half-a-day to cover entirely. We cut short the plan and visited the rosarium and one section of the garden to spend the evening quite relaxed! The calmness and greenery of the garden was soothing and we enjoyed it.

Left the gardens to the city center and decided to taste the famous Austrian pastries and cakes in their famous cafe shops. The first target was the cafe sacher to taste the world-famous Original Sacher-Torte (torte in German means cake). Franz Sacher in 1832 created a palatable dessert for high-ranking guests and later on a large scale to the general public. The Sacher-Torte is a soft and fluffy chocolate cake with the tasty apricot jam under the icing and probably considered as most famous of all cakes!!

Once we were at the Hotel Sacher, I recollected that this is the same place where they prepared a a single cake diametered 2.5 meters in 1998 and entered into the Guinness Book of Records. Another interesting info at Wiki says 'The recipe of the Hotel Sacher's version of the cake is a closely guarded secret. Those privy to it claim that the secret to the Sacher Torte's desirability lies not in the ingredients of the cake itself, but rather those of the chocolate icing. According to widely available information, the icing consists of three special types of chocolate, which are produced exclusively by different manufacturers for this sole purpose. The hotel obtains these products from Lübeck and Belgium'. Now, I should say the cost of one cake piece (refer picture), it was Eur4.9, costly but equally tasty ;) After the delicious and high calorie retreat, we roamed the Graben, the famous shopping street of Vienna and started collecting few of the souvenirs for remembrance.
The next day started with a wonderful breakfast at hotel and we energetically went to the city center. Visited the St. Stephen's Cathedral (Stephansdom in German). It is the tallest church in Austria with a height of 136.4m, and the roof was beautiful, never seen a church with such beautiful roof design. No building can be built in Austria taller than St. Stephen's Cathedral, this is similar to the rule in Madurai, comparing with Meenakshi amman tower. Really interesting to understand the kind of respect which is globally followed.
The historic centre of Vienna is rich in beautiful architecture, including Baroque castles and gardens, as well as with grand buildings, monuments and parks. The city center can be covered by walk casually and found this colorful steps for a museum.

We visited the Hofburg palace that is the former imperial residence until 1918. Today it is the official seat of the Austrian Federal President. It also encompasses six museums, a chapel, the national library, the famed Winter Riding School, a greenhouse, and a park. It was so big and I guess it will take two days to thoroughly see the place. We had a general overview of the palace and went to our attraction: Butterfly house created out of greenhouses built from 1901-1907.

Its been another long wish to go inside a butterfly house and we made it at Vienna. It was a memorable experience to see many butterflies passing around you, so freely, bringing a smile on everyone's face!! The only constraint inside the house was the size was small when compared to the price they charge, but the first-time-experience was worthy!!

During my quick review of Vienna, I read about the fiakers, a two-horse-drawn carriage, for many tourists, a ride with the two-horse carriage is one of the highlights. The cost for a short tour (approx. 20 min. through the centre of the Old City) is Eur55 and for a long tour (approx. 40 min. through the Ringstrasse and the Old City) is Eur80. Having enough experience with horse drawn carriage in India, we opted out of this tourist-must-do and preferred to see the city center on our own.

Walked down to Nasch Market, which existed since the 16th century, the oldness was vivid along with colorful crowd buying fruits, vegetables and various delicacies from every country. We bought some exotic dried fruits like liche, papaya, lots of varieties of nuts and sweets and had deliciously spicy lunch at DR. FALAFEL (Turkish style restaurant).

Walked back to Karlsplatz (city center area) and took tram to Hundretwasserhaus (Hundertwasser House). The Hundertwasserhaus is an apartment house in Vienna, Austria designed by an artist Hundertwasser. You may ask, why to go to an apartment house but the uniqueness is that it features undulating floors, a roof covered with earth and grass, and large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows!!

Within the house there are 52 apartments, four offices, 16 private terraces and three communal terraces, and a total of 250 trees and bushes.

It seems that the Hundertwasser House is one of Austria's most visited buildings and has become part of Austria's cultural heritage!! But the Hundertwasser House can only be viewed from outside (per this instruction posted at its entry). TIP: near to the house, there is a book store which sells books on the artist Hundertwasser and there is one book depicting all the inside views. Scroll through it and its fun! It was so different to all the grand palaces & fine buildings of Vienna. The place has a character and brought a smile to our face!!

Opposite to the house is a Hundertwasser village, where his crazy and uncanny constructional designs can be enjoyed, the souvenir shop was cheaper than that of the city centre!! The only difficulty I faced was that the tram map was not elaborative but doesnt detail the trams running towards Hundretwasser house. It needed few enquiries to locals, ofcourse killing, sorry speaking,  the German language and getting a reply in English, as they see I am not a German ;)
Came back to the museum quartier, it should have been a good relaxing place on a sunny day but when we reached it rained and we lost interest to spend time there. Its true that, when the Sun shines, the charm in the location increases, you feel happy, relaxed, at the same time, when the weather is worst, the beauty vanishes. Always plan a visit to Europe under good weather conditions!! But the rain was a passing and we roamed a beautiful garden between the Art and National museum buildings. The two big buildings and the nearby old constructions reminded us of Brussels and Paris, no memories of WW-2, it all escaped!

Near to that was the parliament house of Austria and Vienna's Rathaus (Legislative assembly). When we casually walked near the parliament, my wife came across this commemoration which states that Austria's republic day is my birthday (Nov 12th), interesting isnt it?
The film festival on Rathausplatz was on and there was more people and food from different countries. This film festival is quite famous and this was the 22nd time! Its a festival that shows selected famous classical music concerts on a open theater setup. Spend sometime roaming the food court and tried some chinese noodles. Couldnt wait for the show (as it gets dark at 8PM) and strolled out to city center. Sudden urge to taste 'one-more-time' the sachertorte came up and directly went to the hotel and enjoyed it :) to end a very beautiful day at Vienna!
After a wonderful breakfast at the hotel and left to The Belvedere. It is a historical building complex that includes two Baroque palaces: the Upper and Lower Belvedere seperated by a beautiful garden. I read a recommendation to enter the garden from the lower bevedere palace (from the südbahnhof entrance), take the nice lake reflection view and move down on the gentle gradient which had decorative tiered fountains and cascades, Baroque sculptures, and majestic wrought iron gates towards the other end of the museum (upper belvedere). With the weather being good and less tourist around due to early morning time, the garden walk was romantic and beautiful with nice water fountain flowing around. The symmetrical french garden setup was beautiful, really liked it.

 The lower palace houses an extensive collection from the well known artist Gustav Klimt, that includes the Kiss (read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kiss_(Klimt_painting)). 2012 being the 150th anniversary celebration of Gustav Klimt, I came to know about him a lot while roaming Vienna. Being an art introvert, I never know him, but after this trip, was really impressed on his works! Due to time constraint, couldn't enter the museum of his works, but spend sometime at the museum's souvenir shop, which almost had all his famous work!!

One point was vivid for me is that the city is getting modernized!! Vienna just got introduced with Schnell Bahn (S Bahn or speed train) and many of the U bahn stations and tram stations are under renevation. Even one line, U1 was completely stopped for major work. Hope they don't loose the baroque architechture for the sake of modernisation. I would rate Vienna a people friendly, nice and beautiful city to visit in Europe!! Its a heaven for museum and art lovers, nevertheless people like me who love nature and photography are also entertained!!

Reached Westbahnhof and started the journey back to Hamburg!! Once reached reading here, I should thank you for reading through, hope my writing (after years) havent changed! with the expectation of your encoraging comments, let me sign off with a smile! Have fun and enjoy the life's precious moments!!