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Vienna 2017

9th December

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City wandering & Cake

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Time to explore the city, Miche was never going to be truly satisfied that the city had been toured properly without a boat trip and a tram ride; so with a boat trip booked for the following day, we boarded the scenic Vienna Ring Tram for a trip around the city...

Ring Tram



Miche on board and plugged into the commentary for what was an interesting tour of some of Vienna's impressive architecture and it allowed us to get some bearings...

 
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Vienna historically has had a large Greek population, hence the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in its Byzantine Revival style...
 
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I'd taken a photo of this beautiful building (Regensburger Hof) behind the Johannes Gutenberg Monument, assuming it was an important civic or commercial building... it turned out to be the restaurant we'd pre-booked for our day 4 dinner...

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Political teddy bears...
 
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In Stephansplatz with our newly acquired Christmas mugs; we were later to find that each of the many Christmas markets had their own mug - we managed to restrain ourselves to just 2 styles...
 
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Stephansdom...
 
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Stephansdom in all its glory, looking a lot cleaner than my visit in 1987 - love the roof...
 
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Grubbier in 1987 and scaffolding in the same place, but I still loved the roof back then too...
 
1987 version

Looking down Graben, one of the higher end shopping streets towards the Wiener Pestsäule (Column of Pest - a memorial to plague victims). At the end of Graben, is Kohlmarkt where the really high end shops are, despite a name that translates as 'Cabbage Market' - needless to say we weren't interested in any of those...

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Pigeons on the Column of the Pest...

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Just off Graben, is St Peter's Church adding a bit of Baroque...


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Brutal statues on the facade of the Spanish Riding School as seen from Michaelerplatz...


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... alongside Stephansplatz, this was another location where tourists are stalked by young men dressed as Mozart to try and sell you tickets to concerts of the Viennese 'classics', which perpetually seemed to have only 5 seats left...


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A bowl-whittler at the 'Old Christmas Market' on Freyung...

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Cafe Diglas
 
With a few miles of very chilly walking under our belts, it was time to expand them to take on the first of the cafes we wanted to visit to sample Vienna's signature cakes with Viennese melange coffees...


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Miche at the Frohesfest sign near the Rathaus...


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The trees looked stunning bedecked in thousands of lights...


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Christmas tree and Rathaus...


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Rathaus...


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Looking toward the neo-gothic twin spires of Votivkirche ...


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Giant Rathaus snowglobe...

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The city's main Christmas market at Rathausplatz...
 
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Putting a brave face on it, though it was so busy that you couldn't get near many of the 150 stalls without some very un-Yuletide shoving, so we decided to return during the week...


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Rathaus & Rathausplatz Christkindmarkt...

 
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Miche walking towards the magnificent Hofburg Palace, now mainly museums...

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We finished the evening with dinner at the 1516 Brewing Company, which was very busy and loud as to be expected on Saturday night, so feeling full and a little jaded we wandered to the world's largest public ice rink - Wiener Eislaufverein, before retiring for the night.


1516





Next - Day 3 - Bratislava & Cafe Central


Return to Short Breaks Menu
 

Day 1 - Travel & Salm Bräu
Day 2 - City Wander & Christmas Market
Day 3 - Bratislava & Cafe Central
Days 4 & 5 - Snowglobes, Cafe Sacher & Vienna by night