Vienna: It's All About Park, Music, and Seriously Good Pastries

Our last part of our Austrian travel comprised of visits to Linz and Vienna. Our stay in Linz was way too short, shorter than I wanted. It was one mere night. Innsbruck to Linz took the longest of all at three hours. We stayed at a hotel strategically located downtown. It has a long name: Austrian Trend Hotel Schillerpark. The day we arrived in Linz was the first overcast day we had in our entire trip, but temperature was rather stable at mid 60's F (15-17 C) so that was fine. Sunshine welcomed us bright and early the following day, woot!

Me in front of Schiller Park in Linz

Downtown Linz

We wanted to visit Ars Electronica Center in Linz when we arrived on Monday, however were not aware that most museums in Austria are close on Monday. This cultural, education, and scientific institute has pretty cool stuff, with one of exhibits allowing you to experience being inside of a human's body. So, that was a bummer that we couldn't check it out. We ended up spending the day roaming around downtown Linz (practically around the corner from where our hotel was), checking out some stores, and looking for a restaurant to eat early dinner. We found some Mediterranean place called Dama Rose. It's a cute little place that offers pizza, falafel, schwarma, kebab, and Mediterranean-style salad. Prices were very reasonable, portions were ample, and the food tasted quite good. It looked like a family-owned restaurant so it felt good to support a local establishment.

Touristy part of Vienna

We took off to Vienna the following day. Yay, off to the capital! Linz to Vienna took a mere 1 hr 15 minutes by the OBB train. We left Linz late morning at 11:26 am, and arrived around 12:45 pm. I felt that I didn't get a chance to get to know Linz due to limited time we had there. Maybe this is a sign that we should go back in the future.

Area surrounding Museum of Natural History and Kunsthistorisches Museum

Vienna, fancy to see you again! Per most recent survey by Economist Intelligence Unit, it is rated as the most livable city in the world. I second that! They said it's all about park, music, and seriously good cake. To me, Vienna was all about park, music, and seriously good pastries. Yes, you heard it right, damn good pastries. Despite that we didn't have a single cake in Vienna, we spent every morning in Vienna eating pastries for breakfast. Anker and Strock were two cafes we frequented for breakfast and hot cocoa break. Well actually at this point I felt that the whole Austria is about delicious pastries and other baked goods.

We decided not to buy a Vienna pass or card as we did not want to feel the rush to visit as many attractions as possible. We immediately checked in at our hotel, Intercontinental, located right across from Stadtpark subway station.

Schnitzel at Schnitzelwirt!

Vienna is busy, metropolitan, and alive even after 9 o'clock at night. Some cities in the US are dead after 9 pm, including the likes of Seattle and Portland. It was nice to be able to walk around at night in such a lively night time setting in Vienna. It makes you feel safe yet adventurous. There were still many restaurants open in Stadtpark neighborhood, giving people options for late-night dining. We also got a chance to walk around a park next to the subway station and ran into quite a few of people walking their dogs during the early evening.

During our first evening back in Vienna we went out to Schnitzelwirt for some schnitzel dinner. To our surprise, there were quite a lot of locals in the restaurant. This was a sign that the restaurant must have had good food. Damn right, the schnitzel turned out delicious! We were seated with an elderly Austrian man, who had a plate of schnitzel and drank two beers. It seemed that he was there to pass the time while enjoying himself. We asked him to take a picture of us, which he agreed to graciously.

Tableware collection at the Sisi Museum

We visited Sisi Museum the next day (13.90 Euros per person for the admission), followed by the Military Museum (6 Euros per person) that most displayed exhibits surrounding the World War I. Very interesting stuff. Here below is the picture of the vehicle that was ridden by Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria when he was assassinated on June 28th 1914 in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Some of the ultimatum sent to the Kingdom of Serbia by Austria-Hungary following the assassination was rejected, leading to Austria-Hungary's declaring war against the Kingdom of Serbia. This was a turning point in history that triggered many actions resulting in war (now known as World World I) among countries in Europe.

Vehicle on which Archduck Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in Sarajevo in 1914

Our day was wrapped up by an early dinner at a restaurant close to Stadtpark station called Meierei im Stadpark. It's a casual all-day dining place serving pastries, baked goods, and classic local dishes. It was rather spendy but not too bad, I would say. Total bill was 60 Euros (rounded after tip) for two dishes, and three beverages. We each had a beef goulash, and ordered currant and grape juices to go with our meals. I would rate their goulash an 8.5 out of 10! Splendid meal + ambiance overall.

Our last full day in Vienna was spent on a venture to the fine arts/history museum (Kunsthistorisches Museum). Admission was 15 Euros per person. It was a big one and took at least 2-3 hours for us to check out the exhibits.

Kunsthistorisches Museum

We were supposed to have appetizing late lunch but the place we went to turned out to be a not-so-great Vietnamese place. I think it is unfortunate Austrians do not have excellent and wide access to good, authentic Vietnamese food. Google shows favorable reviews by locals, however our experience was the opposite. We ordered pho, to be on the safe side, and it was (I must say) rather awful. The broth was oily and far from tasty. Decent pho restaurants are rather ubiquitous in Portland, but that's certainly not the case in Vienna. We had a great pho at Uncle Van while in Salzburg, but this one in Vienna (called Happy Vietnam) did not make us happy for sure. If you haven't been exposed much to Vietnamese cuisine you may have a differing opinion than mine.

A string quartet ended our last evening in Vienna. They performed a few pieces by Mozart and Haydn. They sounded a little too mellow to my liking. I would have rather listened to Mozart's Marriage of Figaro again. Actually, I wish they could have played Bach's stuff. Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring would have been superb. Oh well, one could only hope!

At the Kunsthistorisches Museum

More observations about Austria as our travel proceeded further:

- Spar and Billa Corso are two main grocery stores in city center of all places we went to. They have a machine that makes you amazingly delicious orange juice (half a liter for 2.99 Euros), which we drank daily. It's a self-served OJ machine, and all you have to do is hit the button and it automatically squeezes 7-8 navel oranges to produce 500 mL of this damn good OJ.

- Italian, Indian, and Mediterranean (mostly Kebab type of place) are among the most common foreign cuisines that one can easily find in Austria. Of course, Chinese restaurants can be easily found, but its authenticity needs to be questioned.

- goulasch, originally from Hungary, is quite popular in Austria (hey, after all Austria and Hungary used to be one unity) But being all too familiar with Indonesian beef rendang (which is also stewed beef, except that it's caramelized and cooked in different kinds of spices and herbs), you would get why I am not particularly impressed by the taste of goulasch. It is hearty and all but not the tastiest according to my palate.

I would end my review of the Austrian Trip here. We had a blast! This travel refreshed me and made me feel brand new again. I have now been back to work for a week and feeling recharged. Can't wait for the next adventure ahead!