Late Friday evening I arrived at my friend Lena's place in Vienna. Saturday morning we started our stroll around the city with the Hundertwasser House. Hundertwasser was an artist who liked the unusual and disliked straight forms and lines. The perfect form for him was the circle.
All through the city you could find different kinds of street art:
Dustbin sayings
Metro wall poetry
Next stop was the Stadtpark, but all the fountains and flowers were already gone for wintertime.
Then we marveled at Karl's church on Karl's place before we moved on to Naschmarkt (fresh food market). There we bought fish, olives and nuts.
Sacher Cake from Hotel Sacher
As we walked on, we passed by some monumental buildings housing museums and some little huts that got erected for Christmas Market. In front of the city hall we even encountered the first open Christmas Market with hot wine, punch and all the season's sweets.
Hofburg
Then we crossed the ring road into the centre walking through the castle and found also the shopping streets decorated for Christmas even we still had six weeks to go to Christmas Eve. We visited the Dome and then had some Austrian food.
Sunday Lena took me to see Castle Schönbrunn a bit outside the city. I enjoyed the guided tour and think I have to read up on the Habsburg kings and queens, especially on Maria-Theresia, Franz Josef and of course Sisi, the Bavarian girl who married the Austrian prince and became queen.
Castle Schönbrunn
Carriage Museum
Lena had booked a table at the famous Figlmüller for lunch. Here they serve the original Wiener Schnitzel that will be to big for your plate. If you do not manage to swallow all this delicious piece of meat, the staff is well prepared and will hand you paper and a bag to carry the remainders home.
With my stomach full I bid Lena farewell and drove back home to high fuel prices and foggy days.
