Before My Socks Dry in Vienna

This blog is a bit delayed, as we just now have had some down time since our Anniversary trip to Vienna 2 weekends ago.  Better late than never!

Before the trip, we were doing our usual research into the city of choice, and ran across a reference to a film from the 90s: Before Sunrise.  It is a romance film of two people who meet on a train from Budapest to Vienna and spend the day/night exploring Vienna together. As a side note, the sequel Before Sunset was released 9 years later (2004), and the 3^rd film Before Midnight was released 9 years after that during the week of our anniversary (just two weeks ago!).  Each film features the same actors, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy.  Therefore, it really seemed fitting to start the trilogy about the couple who met on the train to Vienna while we were taking the train to Vienna ourselves.  Now if we produced a movie about our own experiences in Vienna, then we would have to title it Before My Socks Dry, since the weather took a little bit away from the Hollywood romance seen on film.  But still, Ethan Hawke can’t compete with me.

Overall, we had a really nice, relaxing time in Wien even though we were limited on sightseeing due to the persistent rain.  Starting about May 20^th, most of central Europe began the weeks of non-stop rain that caused the record flooding we have been seeing this last week or so.  We were really lucky that our trip and our lives in Munich were not affected other than some wet socks.

Upon our arrival Thursday, we were greeted by our really cool, circus themed hotel with an early check-in – 25hours Hotel Wien.  We dried off, warmed up, and then made our first ventures in the city only to find that EVERYTHING - including most restaurants - was closed because of the holiday (which we misunderstood in thinking it was only a German holiday).  So we found a café where I had an iced coffee and Julie a bad, over microwaved chocolate cake (what café doesn’t have fresh cake?!).  To cope with our failures and re-start, we went to the English theater to see The Great Gatsby, which we found quite entertaining despite the sometimes ill-fitting Jay-Z/Beyonce music.

On Friday, we slept in and went out for brunch at an amazing Israeli inspired restaurant called Neni in the Naschmarkt (open air market) serving delicious pita bread, humus, fresh cheese, falafels, and breakfast arrangements.  This may have been the highlight of my trip had the sun not come out the following day.  Despite the umbrella/raincoat combos, we still had to go back to the hotel so we could change socks afterwards.  We took some nice, long afternoon strolls and got to see the essence of Wien through the some small breaks in the rain.  We stopped at a beautiful café for a break but were completely fooled a second time when Julie ordered the same cake and a few minutes later we heard the microwave beeping in the kitchen.  Stay away from the delicious looking Mohr im Hemd.  At this point, tired of peering from underneath our umbrellas and of falsely advertised cakes, we decided to settle in back at the hotel restaurant, 1500 Foodmakers, for dinner (plus we needed to change our socks a second time).

At Naschmarkt.  Octopus anyone?

Rathaus, Votivkirche

We had some fantastic pizza at the hotel along with homemade orange iced tea (me) to drink.  Then our luck took a turn for the better and the sun came out just as the sun began to set.  We rushed paying the bill so we could run out with our camera and see the sun/sky again (keep in mind that we had been living in constant rain the week before in Munich as well).  We took a wonderful stroll to the city center and were able to see the whole city from a fresh, umbrella-free perspective.  Then we realized how Wien felt like the “Paris of the East” in that every building/structure has such elaborate architecture that is bigger and more dramatic than your average European city. 

View from our hotel's roof; Julie jumping for joy at the lack of rain; Hofburg

Inside Stephansdom; Hofburg

The following day our luck continued and we had about 8 hours of good sunshine – we rushed through the city to see all the things we felt we were missing out on.  Perhaps we were over ambitious when we decided to jump right in and walk about 3 hours from Hundertwasserhaus, through Prater, to the Danube without eating breakfast.  Thankfully an overly-elegant café on the not-so-pretty river was able to rescue us with some water and a Sachertorte.  We made it back the tourist safe-haven near St. Stephansdom for some lunch at an outdoor café.

Hundertwasserhaus; Having fun with statues in Prater

After lunch, we toured the nearby streets and squares before making a stop at the Dorotheum auction house (think antiques road-show gems).  Despite the fact that we were getting a bit worn out, the sunny weather drew us out of the city to Schloss Schönbrunn, which is like our own Nymphenburg Palace by our apartment except the gardens/grounds are much more impressive.  The best part of the entire trip was scaling the hill behind the castle to the Gloriette for refreshing city views and the perfect break from our “see all of Vienna in 8 hours” kind of day.  We went back to the hotel for some more pizza and pasta (and more homemade orange iced tea for me).  We nixed the idea of going back to the Prater for the evening, as cramming a 4 day vacation into one sunny day can wear a person out.  Instead we settled for the second installment of our trilogy (we didn’t get to the third one as it is in limited release).

Since I only brought 4 pairs of socks for a 4 day trip, and was averaging 3 a day on rainy days, I was pleased to wake up and find them all dry.  This was just in time as the rain had begun again as we made our way by train home.  Although we couldn’t have the Vienna trip we were really hoping for, we realized just how lucky we were when we saw the flooding damage across the land as we made our way home – especially after our train was diverted due to flood damage through the town of Passau, which would be hit the worst with flooding beginning that night.  And even through all the rain, we still thought it was an awesome, very beautiful city worthy of anyone’s Europe itinerary.

*queue happily-ever-after music*