A Very Merry Viennese Christmas

Well, I'm back from Christmas in Vienna! Have been for a while but I took a few days for myself to recuperate and catch up with family and friends. The task of writing this post is also a bit daunting because I feel like I have so much to say! I'll just start from the beginning.

So I arose sickeningly early at 5:23 am on Sunday, December 23rd in order to catch the 6:20 tram to the main train station.  I showered, quickly ran through my packing checklist, checked my bags one more time, then met Allison at the tram stop and head to the station. Once our train got to the platform we rode to Karlsruhe, transferred and rode to Munich, then our third and final train took us to Vienna.

Hofburg Imperial Palace

Once we arrived we headed to our hostel, a nice place called "Hostel Ruthensteiner" that I would recommend to anyone traveling to Vienna needing a place to stay. The staff was very friendly and it had a relaxing and comfortable atmosphere. Ok, commercial over! After checking in we got a map from the front desk and scoped out a few places to eat and settled on a restaurant called Mariahilferbrau. I had the beef goulasch (absolutely delicious) while Allison had the chili (equally delicious), both of which were complemented nicely with a couple of beers. The next day we headed out into the city and saw the Christmas market, had breakfast at a bakery, and took in some of the historical buildings around town.

The days were nice, but the nights were awesome. I don't know what it is, but Vienna was full of Australians, particularly our hostel. That made for good conversation, a friendly atmosphere, and lots of laughter! We hung out at the hostel bar, went to an "Australian pub" one night (which the Australians hated), and a bar/restaurant called Mozart's that stayed open until 6 in the morning. I won't go into detail,  but good times were had, songs were sung, a guitar was played, drinks were drunk, and dumplings were eaten. Mostly.

All of Schönbrunn Palace that I
could fit on my camera screen

My favorite sight in Vienna would probably be Schönbrunn Palace. Schönbrunn, meaning "beautiful spring", was a summer palace that was requisitioned by the Allied Forces after WWII and used as offices for the British Delegation to the Allied Commission for Austria. Later it was used for important events such as the meeting between John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev (secretary of the communist party in Soviet Union, partially responsible for the de-Stalinization of Soviet Union) in 1961 [Thank you, Wikipedia]. The palace is now a museum and a small number of the palace's 1,441 is open to the public. We took the Grand Tour so we saw 40-something rooms including bed chambers, dining rooms, dressing rooms, libraries, secret meeting rooms, and the ball room. It was truly majestic but hard to believe that people actually lived there because it was so extravagant and had to have required so much upkeep! To top off the experience, there was a huge Christmas Market on the palace grounds to visit after the tour.Vienna was beautiful and a wonderful place to spend the Christmas holiday, but I'd like to go back one day, maybe in the summer time to experience the good weather and open shops!