Cafes, opera and more cafes. Vienna is a glutten for stereotypes however this is a stereotype I could get used to. Sitting around in the morning sipping a coffee out in the sunshine of one of the hundreds of cafes then making your way to another fancy cafe for a bite to eat...and another coffee. Vienna is designed around the notion that it is a classy and upmarket European city. Every building in the city looked like it had just got a fresh coat of paint and the waiters wore tuxedos in cafes and called us "sir" and "ma'am".
We (Bec, myself, Leah, Char and Lynn) tried out a bit of culture on the first night by going to the open-air opera set up at the rathaus (town hall). We took a few bottles of wine because we couldn't afford to buy the drinks there and settled in to watch. The girls lasted almost half an hour before leaving, Bec and I fared little better by making in almost to intermission before heading home bored out of our minds. Not that the opera was bad but we just had no idea what was going on.
We hit the cafes the next day. Cafe Sperl was Hitlers favourite hangout while in Vienna but not surprisingly this was left out of the information supplied about the place. Bec even tried a coffee but by the time she'd filled the little espresso cup with cream and sugar you'd hardly call it a coffee. We wandered lazily through the city taking in the sights of the Hofburg palace and St Stephens Cathedral. The buildings in Vienna city centre aren't as spectacular as most other cities and the palaces weren't all that great but I'd probably live there if I had to.
Yet another cafe, this time Cafe Frauenhuber which was the hangout place of Mozart and Beethoven. This one was a little bit fancy for us and I think the waiter wasn't overly impressed that we went in there dressed like tourists. I actually got pushed by the waiter as we were leaving because he wanted us out quicker because a well dressed couple was waiting for a table.
Last day in Vienna we found the summer palace after some dodgey navagation. Now this place I'd live in without any arguement. The palace itself was a few hundred metres long but it was the garden that was the spectacular thing. A massive, massive garden of flowers leading to a waterfall and monument upon a hill that overlooks the whole thing. This is only their summer residence! I suppose this is to be expected from a city with hundreds of churches bigger than any in Australia and nobody even knows their names.
Vienna definately is a place to kick back, drink some coffee in style and take in the city at a slow and easy pace.
