We stayed in a different city every night of our trip -- except Vienna. Yesterday, we arrived late, found a small cafe (near the hotel) with GREAT food (which we vowed to revisit tonight -- and did) and a laundromat (across the street), so we ate, did laundry, and retired to the hotel. Today, we saw Vienna -- and made sure we know how to get to the Lipizzaner show on Friday. Vienna has a great U-Bahn (subway) system, so -- to avoid traffic and parking -- we bought a 2-day pass and and boarded the U-Bahn.
 |
| Our first stop was Karlsplatz. We've been there before, but it's a beautiful place -- and it's where we needed to transfer U-Bahn lines. |
 |
| Another advantage of riding the U-Bahn is that you end up discovering some obscure gems that aren't in the guidebooks. This church (Minoritenkirche), built between 1276 and 1350 A.D., is hidden among some larger buildings, but happens to be right in front of the U-Bahn station.
|
 |
| We located the Spanish Riding School where the Lipizzaners are trained, |
 |
| but Alice just wanted to pet the horses. |
 |
| This is Josefplatz (around the corner from Michaelerplatz where Alice is petting the horses above). Directly behind Alice is the entrance to tomorrow night's Lipizzaner show. |
 |
| Our next U-Bahn stop was Stephansdom. This cathedral was built in 1137 A.D., but reconstruction and expansion continued until 1511. The colored roof consists of 230,000 glazed tiles. (Because of neighboring buildings, it's difficult to get far enough away to get a complete picture.) |
 |
| This is the "Upper Belvedere Palace" -- built between 1717 and 1723. The "Lower Belvedere" was built between 1712 and 1716 but, apparently, was insufficient. The gardens between the two (some of which are shown in the video below) are about 300 feet wide and 1700 feet long. |
These are some of the fountains and gardens behind the Upper Belvedere.
 |
| Unbeknownst to us, there were two major events going on in Vienna while we were there. Alice found a brochure in the hotel (that she's holding in the Karlsplatz picture above) that said (or so she thought) that there was a "wine festival" going on in the "Prater" -- which is a public park that includes an amusement park. So we went there. It didn't seem like a wine festival -- it seemed more like a beer festival -- so I Googled it. It turns out that we walked into "Wiener Wiesn" ("Vienna Oktoberfest") -- only the second year this festival has existed. Although, just like at Munich's "Oktoberfest," they celebrate their heritage by wearing lederhosen and "pioneer dresses" -- and drinking beer -- the atmosphere is much more subdued than Munich's (as we would later learn). |
This year's Wiener Wiesn (September 27 - October 7) boasts 165,000 visitors (we were two of those) and the consumption of 5000 schnitzel and over 22,000 gallons of beer (we were none of those). There were 3 tents with "traditional" music groups. This was the most traditional -- the others mixed a little rock and roll with their accordions.
Besides Wiener Wiesn, there was a music festival, called "Waves Vienna" (October 4-7) going on. Modern bands were playing in several venues outside the Prater (as per my Google search) and we just happened upon this one in front of the Prater U-Bahn station (notice the ferris wheel in the background). Unbeknownst to us at the time, this is "Dust Covered Carpet" and they have a couple of albums on iTunes.
