Travel Blog
Apparently I just enjoy doing my travel blog. It all seems so long ago now (especially the parts I’m still going over). But that’s ok because it’s nice to just sit here and think about the cool stuff Giffy and I got up to on our OE. We’re kind of thinking about another one, since one of my bosses was telling me that I should be considering going further a field for my training, but not seriously talking about it since that’d be a while away and we’ve got more interesting things to talk about at the moment.
Back to the travelling. So our next stop was what Giffy and I have used as our answer to that inevitable (and inedible) question, “where was your favourite place you visited?”. Vienna was the answer we could agree on; not because it was the most amazing or beautiful (although it is those things) but more because it was the most surprisingly awesome city we visited. When I thought of awesome places to visit in Europe, Vienna probably wouldn’t have been in my top 5. Luckily we visited way more then five places so Vienna came up on our hit list.
We had always intended to visit there; not really because we knew anything about the place, but because we knew a girl studying at university there. She’s a pretty awesome Austrian who my brother met when he was doing the OE thing who then subsequently visited him (and us) when she came out to New Zealand. This Austrian girl at the moment aspires to become an organic farmer in rural Japan, so she is perhaps unsurprisingly a pretty interesting person to hang out with. Also, since she was a student and living in Vienna, she was able to put us on to lots of cool stuff to do with our time. The two highlights that immediately come to mind from hanging out with her were going to the University Brauhaus (really nice food with their own microbrewery, highly recommended) and going to the Opera house to see a surreal version of Madame Butterfly (subtitles sadly in German, but our friend got lost as well regardless). It was performed by the national opera company and was pretty amazing from the point of view of costuming/set design/actor/vocal work, and we got to go on the incredibly cheap because our friend knew how to collect the super cheap standing room only tickets that transformed into very comfortable seat tickets (even if they were a fair way back).
That was all pretty great but perhaps isn’t something you could easily replicate. I’d still recommend Vienna to anyone because of all the other awesomeness involved. Vienna is another one of those cities virtually bursting at the seams with history, and it’s a different period of history then you’ll find in other places. Vienna was the center of the European world for fairly large chunks of history and so it’s museums, art galleries and treasuries are overflowing with amazing things. My favourite was the Schatzkammer at the Hofburg Palace, which had abundance of reliquaries, relics and regalia, including crazy things like the Crown of the Holy Roman Empire. It’s kind of crazy to look at things like that or this and think, “No, it doesn’t just look valuable.” I felt I learned a lot about European history there and would recommend it to anyone.
We also had a great time at Schloss Schönbrunn; which is awesome just to walk around, as well as having heaps of info about the Hapsburgs. The gardens and monuments are monumental and we have a special place in our hearts for the childrens play area, which had this amazing bird swing (third picture down), which is exactly as awesome as it looks. Extra coolness points for having been a childrens play area for around 300 years. We also went to the Apple Strudle Show at the Court Bakery where they showed us how to make amazing strudel (which Giffy has yet to replicate for me).
That reminds me of another awesome thing! Our friend who we were visiting - her room mate made us strudel and it was really good. Can’t believe I nearly forgot about that.
All in all, Vienna is a great place to visit. At the end of our time there, we felt like we really need a lot more time to just see all the superficial cool things that you normally get to see as a brief tourist, let alone to get to know the city properlly. One of those places we really look forward to going back and devoting some more time to.
Post Script : I didn't even mention Sisi! She had her whole own museum in the Hofburg Palace, and is like the Princess Diana of the 19th Century.
Back to the travelling. So our next stop was what Giffy and I have used as our answer to that inevitable (and inedible) question, “where was your favourite place you visited?”. Vienna was the answer we could agree on; not because it was the most amazing or beautiful (although it is those things) but more because it was the most surprisingly awesome city we visited. When I thought of awesome places to visit in Europe, Vienna probably wouldn’t have been in my top 5. Luckily we visited way more then five places so Vienna came up on our hit list.
We had always intended to visit there; not really because we knew anything about the place, but because we knew a girl studying at university there. She’s a pretty awesome Austrian who my brother met when he was doing the OE thing who then subsequently visited him (and us) when she came out to New Zealand. This Austrian girl at the moment aspires to become an organic farmer in rural Japan, so she is perhaps unsurprisingly a pretty interesting person to hang out with. Also, since she was a student and living in Vienna, she was able to put us on to lots of cool stuff to do with our time. The two highlights that immediately come to mind from hanging out with her were going to the University Brauhaus (really nice food with their own microbrewery, highly recommended) and going to the Opera house to see a surreal version of Madame Butterfly (subtitles sadly in German, but our friend got lost as well regardless). It was performed by the national opera company and was pretty amazing from the point of view of costuming/set design/actor/vocal work, and we got to go on the incredibly cheap because our friend knew how to collect the super cheap standing room only tickets that transformed into very comfortable seat tickets (even if they were a fair way back).
That was all pretty great but perhaps isn’t something you could easily replicate. I’d still recommend Vienna to anyone because of all the other awesomeness involved. Vienna is another one of those cities virtually bursting at the seams with history, and it’s a different period of history then you’ll find in other places. Vienna was the center of the European world for fairly large chunks of history and so it’s museums, art galleries and treasuries are overflowing with amazing things. My favourite was the Schatzkammer at the Hofburg Palace, which had abundance of reliquaries, relics and regalia, including crazy things like the Crown of the Holy Roman Empire. It’s kind of crazy to look at things like that or this and think, “No, it doesn’t just look valuable.” I felt I learned a lot about European history there and would recommend it to anyone.
We also had a great time at Schloss Schönbrunn; which is awesome just to walk around, as well as having heaps of info about the Hapsburgs. The gardens and monuments are monumental and we have a special place in our hearts for the childrens play area, which had this amazing bird swing (third picture down), which is exactly as awesome as it looks. Extra coolness points for having been a childrens play area for around 300 years. We also went to the Apple Strudle Show at the Court Bakery where they showed us how to make amazing strudel (which Giffy has yet to replicate for me).
That reminds me of another awesome thing! Our friend who we were visiting - her room mate made us strudel and it was really good. Can’t believe I nearly forgot about that.
All in all, Vienna is a great place to visit. At the end of our time there, we felt like we really need a lot more time to just see all the superficial cool things that you normally get to see as a brief tourist, let alone to get to know the city properlly. One of those places we really look forward to going back and devoting some more time to.
Post Script : I didn't even mention Sisi! She had her whole own museum in the Hofburg Palace, and is like the Princess Diana of the 19th Century.