Vienna, Austria

Our day started early and we had breakfast at Aida Cafe near our hotel for pastries: apricot danish and apple strudel. We took the metro to Schonbrunn Palace to enter at 8:30 when it opened. We got a 48hr metro pass which was a great value. The Vienna metro system was extensive and we definitely got our money's worth. Schonbrunn Palace was not very busy so early and was a beautiful palace. The audio guide was one of the best I've ever had and I usually hate audio guides. The experience was infinitely better than we had at Versailles simply because it wasn't nearly as crowded. The palace also offered a guided tour in English at 11 but we didn't want to wait around for that. After a 40min tour of the palace, we walked around the gardens for about 2 hours.

We made our way to the Naschmarkt to buy another picnic lunch. We ended up with falafel, talagio cheese, pita, strum (wine/juice hybrid), grapes, hummus w/couscous and chocolates. Total of 15euro spent for a wonderful lunch! We stopped at Resselpark near Karlskirche for our picnic and were very full by the time we finished. We loved the Naschmarkt but many vendors were selling the same things for the same prices. They did have a great variety of items but it wouldn't really make sense to shop around there. Just find a vendor you like and go with it. Most of the people spoke great English.

We took a short walk to Belvedere Palace since we had some time to kill and walked around the grounds a bit. We did not pay to go inside. The gardens were a bit in disrepair but our baseline for comparison was rather high with our knowledge of Schonbrunn and Versailles! We had a 2:30pm PolaWalk tour with Thomas scheduled and met him at Karlskirche. We ended up being the only two people on this tour. We went to Karlskirche, State Opera House, Albertina, Butterfly House, Winterpalais, Volksgarten, Rathaus, Parliament and Votiv Church. We each took 8 polaroid photos and returned the PolaWalk office so Thomas could scan our photos to send us the digital versions.

Again, we had some time to kill after our tour so we got hot chocolate at an Italian coffeehouse nearby. Dinner reservations at 7pm at Appiano Das Gasthaus, which was spectacular. Definitely our best meal in Vienna, and potentially the entire trip! Unfortunately the restaurant was closed due to medical issues over the summer and it seemed like they were struggling to get people back in the door after recently reopening. The food certainly didn't suffer! We started with a variety of breads with egg spreads and olive oil. Sweet potato soup with basil pesto was first. Appetizers: Spanish octopus with chive sauce and wild herb salad; and watermelon caprese salad (grilled watermelon with buffalo mozzarella and basil pesto). For entrees we got: Tuna Steak (special), and Boiled beef (with potato strudel, apple horseradish and chive sauce). Both were simply amazing. For dessert we got strawberry panna cotta with lemon sorbet. Even though it was an expensive meal, we would feel fine going to the restaurant in jeans and the service was excellent. We would definitely go back if we came back to Vienna!

Walking back to the hotel, we got a little lost but eventually found it!Read more