Vienna, Austria

Vienna, Austria didn't wildly beckon Jeff nor myself in our list of places we'd like to see before we leave. But considering it's such an easy drive, we almost felt obligated to make it there. We just kept it in the back of our minds for anytime a weekend seemed right. The right weekend was in April!

On Saturday, we had fun taking a leisurely stroll through the city with our Lonely Planet Book's walking tour. Please don't ask us much about what we saw; the book lacked any sort of elaboration on what we were seeing other than what the thing was, but we liked what we saw!

Anytime you travel to any city in Austria, prepare to be Mozart-ed. Statues, landmarks, and more populously, men dressed as Mozart trying to push Mozart concert tickets. Mozart loved Austria, and today Austria LOVES Mozart!

Guess who this is a statue of?

Stephansdom is the Gothic Cathedral smack dab in the center of Vienna's city center. It's called Stephansdom because when building the cathedral, the town ran out of money and just put a dome on what was to be the second spire . . .

Which brings me to new segment of our travel blog I like to call: Really?

Vienna, it took you sooo long to get the cathedral built in the first place, you couldn't just wait and save money for another complete spire? Really?

A dome is the cheaper option? Really?

An ugly turquoise dome is the cheaper option? Really?

In the last couple hundred years you haven't found any spare pocket change to build the final spire? Really?

As you can see, we didn't think much of one side of Stephansdom. So, you'll only see our favorite side.

We had lunch on a rooftop cafe overlooking our newly-declared favorite side of Stephansdom. The cathedral is impressively clean (or being cleaned). In fact, Vienna was the most clean European city we'd been in, eerily clean. Come to find out, they constantly clean their buildings and landmarks. It's as if the entire city has used a Crest whitening strip. Really beautiful, but almost unbelievably white.

We finished our windy Saturday by wandering the grounds of Schloss Schonbrunn.

Sunday morning we were lucky enough to spend the day with a former intern of Palo Alto's BMW Technology Office. Julianne is finishing her degree at the University of Vienna. We had fun catching up over breakfast and then having a personal tour guide for the remaining parts of the city we hadn't yet seen. Here Julianne, sleeping William and I are in front of the city's, refreshingly cleaned Rathaus.

There was a spring festival being held in its front square. (Julianne reported that a dirt bike course and race has been there the weekend before. The square sure cleaned up well, but that goes without saying in Vienna!) Here the flower princess is being entertained by a one-man oompah band.

We then rode the Wiener Riesenrad, also known as Vienna's Ferris Wheel, in Prater Park. It was built in 1897 and has survived natural disasters and tests of war, unlike other ferris wheels around the world. It even has luxurious dining cars!

Here we are at the top.

Will was asleep when we boarded, but awoke during our rotation. What did our rock star son do first? He pointed out an airplane to us. Nice job, Will!

William and his new girlfriend strolling through Prater Park.

We ended our lovely weekend in Vienna at Figlmüller by eating the best schnitzel of our lives! Jeff and I were just going to share one so we didn't have too full of tummies on the ride home. After we plowed through one, we immediately ordered a second. Yum!

Thank you, Julianne, for sharing your Sunday and Vienna expertise with us!