Vienna was a beautiful city, one of the best we visited. We could have definetly given it more time than a day. But cities are not so much to our taste and hence we did not allow much time. Little did we know about Vienna, until we reached there. The first thing that impressed us was the Vienna woods. A vast protected green belt that cools and keeps the city fresh.
Vienna has a lot of history, that we hardly know about. A walk around the city will make it obvious.
We started with the Karlskirche, the Church of St. Charles Borromeo. In front of the church was a park with a very vibrant bed of tulips.
Walking past the Oper (opera), we reached Stephansplatz. The cathedral standing proud in the heart of the city, probably the highlight of the city.
Our bad luck with buildings is worth a mention here. Every city we have been to, the important buildings have been covered with some form of construction acitivity such as scaffolding or a crane in the way. I suppose it is the time of the year for maintenance but our bad luck at this point seems to continue everywhere. As a result we had to pass on photo opportunities with these buildings.
Next, we walk to Heldenplatz, the Imperial Palace.
On the way to Heldenplatz, we passed an interesting fountain. We had to take a picture here.
Some more walking around and we passed by the Burg Theater.
Right opposite to the Burg theater is the Rathausplatz, the city hall. More scaffolding.
Walking next to the Parliament and some more impressive buildings that were museums and theaters, we reached Theresienplatz. I could not resist sitting on this baby elephant here.
The last stop was Schloss Schonbrunn. A very majestic palace with a garden to rave about. We were quite impressed here.
The highlight of Vienna for us was no palace or garden. But it was the warm hospitality extended by Anna and Franz, the same Austrians we met in Athens.
They were kind enough to invite us home for dinner the previous night. There we enjoyed traditional Viennese Schnitzel for dinner and later spoilt by a desert called Palatschinke along with a very enjoyable conversation and more guidance on Vienna. As mentioned previously, it was them who recommended to visit Hallstatt and Saint Wolfgang. They certainly made our visit to Austria, a better experience.
Many thanks Anna and Franz!
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From Vienna we drove to Salzburg, a city on the border with Germany with a very pleasant landscape all around the city. Salzburg was home to Mozart and the movie "The Sound of Music" was picturised here. Narrow streets with slow moving traffic and one ways did not impress us on entry. After spending nearly an hour to locate an information centre, we finally gave up and headed to our hotel. We stayed outside the city in a small town which was actually in Germany. The nature here was just outstanding.
The next morning we drove to Hohen Salzburg, the fort of the old city of Salzburg.
Quite good views of the city from up there.
A puppet museum in this fort was worth a visit.
After the fort our experience with Salzburg, was not getting any better. We were slapped with a 100 Euro fine for driving into a restricted area, thanks to the GPS!
Not wanting to spend any more time in Salzburg we drove to Berchtesgaden, a town in Germany just on the border. A very very beautiful place, highly recommended for the nature lover.
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