...It means nothing to me

People say that just walking round Vienna is like walking around a museum, and they're not wrong. With its buildings, statues, decadent churches and baroque architecture -it's full of history. You can lose yourself for days just wondering about this very pretty city. A good thing for the discerning "shoestring" traveller, as Vienna was our most expensive stop so far.

So expensive, in fact, that you even had to pay to join the throngs of tourists standing in the middle of St Stephen's Cathedral in central Vienna. A magnificent gothic building, Luke was very disappointed it had lost its religious feel,  both with the huge number of tourists and by the fact that most of it was gated off, with hefty prices to get into each section. That said the architecture was still very impressive, particularly its geometric patterned roof tiles (the Austrian's do good roofs generally!) There were an array of other impressive, less touristy churches, all very baroque and all dripping in gold.

At the heart of the city is the Hofburg Palace, the winter residence of the Hapsburg dynasty. This vast structure is more than just a palace - it's a maze of buildings which form the centre of the city, now hosting an array of museums, as well as housing the current Austrian president. This beautiful palace fits right in amongst a wealth of historic buildings including the Greek revival parliament and the impressive neo Gothic Rathaus (Town Hall). And it's not only the important buildings which are impressive - even Vienna's H&M was housed in a breath-taking baroque edifice, quite a step up from Centrale in Croydon.

Vienna doesn't simply trade on its past, though; it also has an array of impressive modern buildings and galleries, such a the Museum Quarter - a selection of fantastic modern buildings around a square hosting an array of museums and galleries. Across the city, Vienna has no shortage of galleries and museums; you could spend weeks here and not get round them all. As we only had a day, we chose to go to the Wien Museum, a lovely boutique museum, giving a good history of Vienna, along with a special exhibition on Vienna in Film.

A highlight of the day, was (as ever) lunch which we had at the Nachtmarket, a fantastic food market where you good buy an array of food from fresh fish to kebabs, from exotic fruit to sweet of all kinds.

At the end of a busy day sightseeing, we went to a wine cellar to sample some of Vienna's white "new wine" which is brewed on the premises, served in mugs, it's refreshing but very strong We then retired to our hostel, a real gem, the lovely Hostel Ruthensteiner, which amongst other things had a giant chessboard in the garden. After a carton of Viennese wine (unlikely to catch on in the same way their cakes and waltzes have), and it was off to bed – an early start next morning for the train to Budapest.

Louise and Luke

(Posted by Louise)

xx