Arrival
We take a train from Budapest to Vienna as we have traveled by train in Europe before and enjoy the experience and views. The train leaves Budapest on time (11:40 AM) and the conductor comes along to check tickets. At the Austria border, the train stops and customs police check our passports. Then we start and a new conductor checks tickets again. There is food service on the train but we are ok with water and soda we bought in Budapest train station. The trip is a little more than 2.5 hours and arrives on time. We get our luggage from the overhead rack and exit but have trouble finding a taxi stand. We meet a South African couple who live in Atlanta and who seem to be having the same issue. Together we find our way around to the front of the massive station and find the taxi stands after a 7 minute tour of the station.
Get a taxi. As is the case with most European train stations, it is in the middle of the city and so the trip to the hotel is only about 10 minutes. Our driver, Marco, speaks English and tries to get us to commit to having him take us to the airport at the end of our stay. We take his card. He drops us a short block from the hotel which is on a pedestrian only plaza.
Hotel
We are staying at the Hotel am Stephansplatz which is (you guessed it) a Rick Steves upscale recommendation. It is a boutique hotel with only 53 rooms and is located directly on Stephansplatz across from St Stephan’s Cathedral and there is a U-Bahn (metro) station right in front of the hotel. The breakfast area is on the second floor and overlooks St Stephan’s Cathedral and Stephansplatz. The hotel staff is terrific. We have prepaid for a junior suite so there is a separate sitting room and bedroom. The bath has separate rooms for toilet and shower/tub. Very nice and with accommodations and location, it is worth the $300+ per night.
Day 7 – friday PM
After check-in, we take elevator to our room and unpack a little. After a late lunch near the U station, we decide to take the U (U-Bahn/metro) to the Kunsthistorisches Museum which contains many famous paintings. We get U pass and make our way there by about 4:20 PM. We are told the museum closes at 6 PM and so would not have enough time to go through the museum and treasury (I thought Rick Steves said closing was 8 PM!!). We decide to go in anyway. We decline the audio guide and just walk through on our own. We see Rubens, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Raphael, etc, etc, etc. There are very interesting wall Klimt murals in the main stairwell. Visual overload. See pics of Kunsthistorisches Museum.
We take the U back to the hotel and walk around the Stephansplatz area. We find a restaurant and have dinner then back to the hotel. I get a drink from the bar and take back to the room.
Day 8 – Saturday
We are up around 8 and go down to breakfast on second floor at about 8:30. The breakfast is included in the room price and is very good. The breakfast area is not too crowded and has a GREAT view, overlooking Stephansplatz and the U station, so there are lots of people and activity to watch.
We are in the lobby a little before 9 AM to meet our guide, Kathy. She arrives a couple of minutes after 9 and apologizes for being “late”. She is of Greek background and speaks excellent English. (See General Info page for details on how to contact her.) We explain what we had seen in Vienna on the previous day and agree upon a plan for our tour.
We see the Hapsburg palace museum with displays of fine china. We see the Holocaust memorial, the home of sacker torte, the Lipzzaner horses, one of many Mozart’s residences in Vienna, and loads and loads of history. Kathy also makes some restaurant suggestions. Along the way, we stop for a coffee. A very full tour and a guide we would highly recommend. Pics from our tour.
We leave Kathy and find a place for lunch. Then back to the hotel to rest for a while. After, out and explore around Stephansplatz some more and do some souvenir shopping.
This evening, we have pre-purchased tickets for a Mozart concert. We take the U to the area and we are a bit early as we wanted to leave enough time to find the venue. So, we wander down a street in front of the theater and find a place to have a drink in the late afternoon (prosecco, of course). Back to the concert hall and get directed to our seats. We are upstairs in a gallery that circles the hall. Below are the stage level seats and the stage itself. Disappointingly, the audience is ENTIRELY tourists (mostly Asian). The orchestra members come out dressed in period clothing. The concert also includes operatic pieces by both a man and a woman. We are not music aficionados so we can’t really judge the quality of the music. It sounded fine to us but the tourist crowd and the costumed orchestra took a little of the authenticity out of the performance. We left at the intermission. Pics of concert.
For dinner, we try one of Kathy’s suggestions, Reinthaler Biesl which is in the Stephansplatz area. Margi has goulash and I have schnitzel. The food is good, authentic and reasonable. After dinner, we take a leisurely stroll back through the other people enjoying the beautiful evening and return to the hotel.
Day 8 – Sunday
We are up around 9 AM and go down to breakfast. We have decided to go to Schonbrunn Palace which was the summer home of the Hapsburgs. This is pretty easy as we simply use the U stop by our hotel and take the U3 line about 30 minutes to the Schonbrunn stop. From that stop, it is a short walk over and down to the entrance.
Once we pay our admission, it is an amazingly long walk to the actual palace across what must have been a parade grounds. We are relatively early, so crowds are not crazy but there certainly are lots of people. Once inside, we tour the ornately decorated rooms but alas, no pics allowed. Once we complete the inside tour, we go through the extensive gardens surrounding the Palace. Pics of gardens.
We leave the Palace grounds and do a quick pass through the Museum Shop, but buy nothing. We reverse our U trip and return to our hotel in Stephansplatz. We go back to our room to rest as the weather is hot and the Palace tour involved lots of walking.
Late in the afternoon, we go out and decide to go into St Stephan’s Cathedral which is literally right outside our hotel (did I mention the hotel’s great location?). We go through the interior of the church (pics of interior). Then we decide to go up into one of the towers. One is higher and a walk only and the other is shorter but has an elevator. We opt for the elevator. The elevator is very small (and slow). There is a young German couple who has to split up, with the young woman going up with us. This lady is afraid of small spaces so we try to talk to her and calm her on the way up. She makes it ok. After some time at the top, we have to wait in a queue to take the elevator down. Pics from Cathedral tower.
For dinner, we find a random place in Stephansplatz and have an ok meal. More people watching and then back to the hotel for the night.
Day 9 – Monday
We are up around 9 AM and go down to breakfast. We have decided that today will be the Treasury, Albertina Hall, and then maybe a bus tour of the larger city. Today will be a leisurely day as we leave tomorrow and have been very active on our VACATION.
First we go to the Treasury, part of the Hapsburg Palace in Vienna. We have some problems finding the entrance but eventually succeed. Inside (no pics), there are ornate vestments and gold/silver pieces (chalice, crosses, etc). After the Treasury, we have lunch at an Italian place we ate at on Friday, with Margi having pasta and I had a prawn salad.
We then venture to the Albertina Museum with its modern collection. We get the audio guide and wonder through the collection. This is really a great museum where we saw works by Picasso, Monet, Cezanne, Degas, Klimt, Chagall, and more. After the Albertina, we have a coffee at the Mozart Cafe, which is located on a busy square that offers lots of people watching.
We go back to the hotel and take a nap. Late in the afternoon, we decide to do a bus tour on the hop on hop off bus. This gives us a chance to Vienna outside of the center historical area. We see the PNC skyscraper and take some pics for our great niece who has just started at PNC in NYC.
For dinner, we decide to go to a restaurant recommended by our tour guide, Kathy. Jonathan and Sieglinde is located slightly away from Stephansplatz somewhat “behind” St Stephan’s Cathedral. We have had the hotel make reservations. We find the place with no trouble and ask to sit outside. To our surprise, Kathy is there with a a couple of women that she is tutoring in English. We talk with them for a few minutes and then take our own table. Margi has pork/potato skillet and I have asparagus with ham rolled in potato and fried. Meal is good. As we leave, we say a final goodbye to Kathy and her friends. We take a slow walk back to Stephansplatz and our hotel. It has been almost 10 days and we are ready to go home. Back at the hotel, we do some packing before retiring.
Day 10 – Tuesday
We are up around 8 AM and and finish packing before going to our last breakfast overlooking Stephansplatz. We bring our luggage down to the front desk and check out, which is really just turning in our key as we prepaid for the room. We go outside of the hotel and take our final selfie in Vienna with St Stephan’s Cathedral in the background.
Our car arrives on time. The hotel is in a pedestrian only area but somehow our taxi is allowed to pull right up to the hotel to pick us up. Trip to the airport is only 20 minutes. We check-in at British Airways and find that there are business class seats available for 149 pound each. We decline.
As we can’t use the business class lounge, we walk around in the duty free area, get a coke, and buy some Havana Club liquor. Havana Club is just to use up our remaining Euros!!
The flight is full but we are able to get on and get overhead space for Margi’s bag of gifts. Flight is standard economy class and arrives on time. Standard wait in JFK for passport control and luggage. Out to get shuttle to JFK Parking. Tired but trip home is standard 1.5 hours. Good to be home again.
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