Vienna is a big city, our Airbnb was a bit outside the city centre giving us a good walk into the centre before getting on the hop on/off bus. It has a different feel than Budapest as it feels more sprawling. We concentrated our visit on the centre of the city which is surrounded by a circular boulevard, the Ringstrasse. The Ringstrasse was once the city’s defense walls, but today it carries horse and buggies, trams, bicycles and much more. One thing that was obvious to us early on in our visit was that bikes and horses rarely stop...and you can learn some interesting Austrian words if you are standing in, or really even too close to the designated bike lanes.
Our first day we joined a walking tour taking us from the Opera House to Hofburg Palace and finishing up at St. Stephens Cathedral. The Hofburg complex houses several museums, the Spanish Riding school, a church, a chapel and the President of Austria’s offices. Each section of the complex holds its own historical stories from the love story of Franz Josef and Sisi, the wedding of Napoleon at the church (well he asked Austria to pick a representative) to the speech of Hitler from the balcony as he pushed his way into Austria during WWII.
Our second day we explored the Schonbrunn palace gardens, as well as Belvedere. The Schonbrunn palace has a beautiful garden with walking paths, fountains, a zoo, and large arcade that sits at the top of a hill providing visitors with an amazing view of the grounds. It was used as the summer residence of the Imperial family. During our stay we ate schnitzel, bratwurst, and apple strudel....learned about the huge anti aircraft watch towers, built by the Germans, that still remain today as they are too expensive to demolish. Although one was creatively turned into the aquarium with a climbing wall on the outside. Our walking tour guide told us an interesting story about the first public washrooms in Austria and how relieving yourself in public happened prior to them being built. To finish our visit we sat at a biergarten for an afternoon cocktail and some lively Austrian music.