Vienna truly is a beautiful city. It has many parks (which are much more enjoyable in the warmer months of the year, I would imagine) and architecture that makes you question if you are actually in Paris.
As every blog and travel guide out there seems to note ad nauseam, Vienna is a “wonderful mix of old and new” or “sits so amazingly between the present and the past.” As tired as you and I are of hearing that, I have come to know it to be true.
I think that this is because there isn’t really a compact “historic center” of Vienna like most comparable cities in Europe.
The Ringstraße (ring street/road) encircles the inner city, but we found that all of the main sights/sites are quite spread out within this circle. Very different than Munich, let’s say, where everything seemed to be in one spot.
One of the best examples of this mix of old and new was in Stephansplatz, which is the home of the old gothic cathedral as well as modern buildings for shopping.
A short distance away from that, there’s Peterskirche which seems to be an island of a church surrounded by major shopping streets.
From there, we quickly came across the Prunksaal state hall, which is part of Austrian’s National Library. Had I seen pictures of its interior sooner, I probably would have tried to take a peak inside. So, no entry for us.
Just across the way, we came to Michaelerplatz and Josefplatz. Here, you can find the Spanish Riding School, the Albertina, the Opera House, and Hotel Sacher among other historical buildings.
From there, we managed to find the Hofburg, which was the home of the Habsburgs. If you know anything about Austrian history, you know a few things, but mainly Marie Antoinette, Hitler, and the House of Habsburgs. The Hofburg Palace is also the home and office of the Austrian president today.
Right across the street is the Naturhistoriches Museum (Natural History Museum) and the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History Museum). The open space between these two mirrored buildings is where we came across one of the Christmas markets.
Right across the street again is the MuseumsQuartier which is right next to the Volkstheater.
In the other direction from the Natural and Ary History Museums is the Parlament (I think that you can figure out that that means Parliament). Right in front of the building is the Athena Fountain. Athena, being the goddess of wisdom, stands above others in the fountain showing her power.
From there, you see the Rathaus (city hall), which looks very similar to the New Town Hall of Munich. This was the home of the main Christmas market in Vienna.
As I mentioned before, we also went to the Schloss Schönbrunn, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This palace was also a residence of the Habsburgs.
Because our time in Vienna was so limited, we didn’t go inside any buildings/museums apart from the cathedral. I have hopes of returning to Vienna in the summer sometime in order to get a better feel of the city and its offerings. However, it isn’t the highest on my list of cities to which I want to return. It was a pretty city and its architecture amazing, but I didn’t like it as much as I thought that I would. It just didn’t grab me the way that say, Prague did (post to come!).