This morning I decided we should do the Vienna city walk in our Rick Steves book to hit all the major sites. We started at the opera house, then checked out the WWII memorial and at once were hungry for lunch; we didn't get very far on the walk. :) (another late start this morning) We went into the gardens of the Hofburg Palace to have lunch at the Café Restaurant Palmenhaus, which was in a huge greenhouse at least three stories tall, with plants, trees and vines growing all the way up to the ceiling - a beautiful, sunny space! Gavin and I decided we had to come back at night, knowing it would be a completely different atmosphere in the dark.
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| The lovely Café Restaurant Palmenhaus, complete with indoor palm trees. |
A note on Vienna in July and August - this is NOT a good time to visit Vienna; at the world's center for opera and classical music, one can't see an opera at the Staatsoper or the Volksoper. The opera houses all close for a summer break! I was really disappointed that I didn't get to see a performance, but Gavin and his non-opera-loving family were probably relieved... :)
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| Vienna's famous opera house: the Staatsoper. |
After lunch we continued the city walk tour, heading down Kärtner Strasse passing St. Peter's Cathedral and Stephansdom. At this point, most of Gavin's family headed back to the apartment, but Gavin, Tyler and I stayed out. Between Stephansdom and the Hofburg palaces, we found ourselves near one of the most highly recommended dessert places in Vienna, Café Demel. I decided we must stop for dessert, so we walked inside, drooled over the many fresh tortes in the display, and picked a slice apiece. We then headed upstairs to get a table, and we had to wait almost 15 minutes! When we were finally seated, we had the waitress bring our cake and some wine. All the flavors were DELICIOUS! I had Ana's torte, which was chocolate piled upon chocolate with shaped milk chocolate instead of frosting, Gavin had an apple pie-ish torte, and Tyler had a strawberry torte. YUM! The cafe itself had a very "old elegance" feel - high ceilings, lots of chandeliers, wood tables both silky smooth and dented/scratch from years of use.
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| St. Peter's Cathedral at the end of the street. |
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| Tyler and I eyeballing the delicious torte at Demel... |
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| The beautiful upstairs of Demel, where we enjoyed our torte and wine. :) |
After dessert, we ended the walk at Heldenplatz (Heroes' Square) in the Hofburg palace. Then I dragged us all to the Haus der Musik, a museum dedicated to the Vienna Philharmonic, the Viennese classical composers and also a scientific part about the nature of sound and hearing. The science part was really interesting - I got to test the highest pitch I could hear, listen to the "fastest" beat I could hear before my brain turned the beats into just one long tone, etc. Unfortunately, there were a ton of little kids running around and screaming into the mics at each station, so I finally lost patience and left the nature of sound section. :) At the end of the museum, there was a little Wii-like video game where one could "direct" the Vienna Philharmonic to classical Viennese music favorites like "The Beautiful Blue Danube," etc. The orchestra would supposedly follow the beat of your baton, and if you got all the way through they would applaud you. If you messed up, they all put down their instruments and make fun of you. :) Despite my year of conducting training in college, I failed miserably at this game. Not only could I not get the virtual orchestra to follow me, but the baton suddenly broke and I was left holding only the handle! I got booed by the Vienna Philharmonic! How embarrassing! :)
After working up an appetite conducting the Philharmonic, we decided to go cafe-hopping for dinner - having a drink and an appetizer at each place. We started at Sky Cafe, a cafe on the top floor of a building on Kärtner Strasse, where we thought we might get a nice view of Stephansdom. The smartly-dressed hostess gave us an obvious "you're-not-dressed-up-enough" look up and down, but still seated us anyway. I ordered wiener schnitzel for us all to share - I had had it on my last trip to Vienna, but everyone must try wiener schnitzel in Vienna. :) Wiener schnitzel is basically a pork tenderloin - breaded and deep fried, but really soft and tender. I think our waitress was also irritated that we didn't order more than that, but we had told the hostess that we only intended to order drinks and an appetizer... Snooty place overall, but the wiener schnitzel was good. :)
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| Sky Cafe on Kärtner Strasse at night. |
The next cafe we "hopped" to was Cafe Sacher, home of the famous Sachertorte - a famous Viennese dessert of chocolate cake with apricot, but we didn't order it because I am not a fan of pairing apricot with chocolate, plus Rick Steves warned us that the torte is really dry... :) I instead had a delicious hot chocolate with homemade chocolate liquor and a homemade piece of chocolate on the side. (chocolate fix number 2 for the day... :) ) This cafe had a lovely, antique feel and a ton of tourists. :)
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| Tyler and I examining the menu at Cafe Sacher. |
Last but not least, we headed back to the beautiful Café Restaurant Palmenhaus to end the evening. We were right that the atmosphere changed completely at night into a lovely, romantic restaurant with candles, low lights and lounge music. Thus we ended our evening, sipping wine and holding hands, enjoying a lovely Vienna night.
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| Cafe Restaurant Palmenhaus at night. |
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