A week in Vienna

Vienna is a truly beautiful city, even in the middle of winter when the trees are bare, the waters are frozen and a grey coloured sky dominates the days, the buildings just shine. I've never been a building person, and probably still am not. But slowly I can see the differences in styles, cities, eras and wealth.

So we arrived in Vienna with a bang. We're staying at the same hotel I stayed in last time and are looking forward to eat Vienna schnitzel.

We began by exploring the city square. Mum, Dan and I climbed up St Stephen's Cathedral in the morning, and we took a tourist bus around the city for the rest of the day.

Sunday is a rest day and not a whole lot is open. It’s amazing how these great bit capitals can shut down on Sundays and over religious holidays. I like it. While Dan read his book, Mum, Dad and I spent the roaming on the bus tour seeing different sites of Vienna.

We stopped off at the Danube River and walked across all three rivers. Intrigued by a fun looking building on the way back we stopped here for lunch, it was the 'kunst haus wien' museum. They had fantastic pizza things and so-so desserts. For the first time in my life I had left my phone behind.

We got back to the hotel and I was fiddling in my pockets to find my room key, when I realised that I couldn’t find my phone. A quick tip out of my bag indicated that it was definitely not here and could only have been in the gift shop of the museum. My only thought was that my new bankcard was in my phone and that would be an enormous pain!

Luckily the people at the shop had seen it and put it away safely. A quick trip back to the museum in a taxi proved very fruitful! Lesson learnt!

Monday saw us take an adventure into Slovakia to visit Bratislava. When we returned we did a little drinking tour of all the pubs I had previously or wanted to visit. Mum and I had a divine goulash in one restaurant, while another didn’t live it to my memories of last time. It was rainy and I got excited when it started snowing in the wee hours of the morning, when we were back at the hotel. Maybe it will snow for us yet!.

Tuesday was our last official day here and together. I finally got to take mum to Demel’s. It’s this famous pastry shop and chocolaterie in Vienna. They have the most wonderful window displays and make the best hot chocolate. Mum and I got a sit in the back (which can be rare) and enjoyed a hot chocolate each and an apple strudel. The best we had tasted so far.

After earlier exploring in the day mum and I discovered a lovely restaurant with schnitzels. So this evening we headed back with the family to grab a table. These were the biggest schnitzels I had ever seen! The place was massive, multi storey and went on for ages. We had wine and watched dad eat an entrée, while the rest of us saved space for our schnitzel. It was a fantastic way to have our last meal together.

Today is Wednesday and the time is now counting down before we have to depart. I am little nervous today. Trying not to think about having to say goodbye. We began our day by enjoying the delicious breakfast at Hotel Austria once more, before going for one last walk around Vienna. We walked past the Albertina museum and I saw that they had an exhibition on Monet.

I mainly wanted to see it because it was mentioned so often in Midnight in Paris. So I left the family to finish exploring whilst I went in and observed some art. When I returned we went back at the hotel to pack up and for me to finish writing my cards that mum was taking home.

Whilst in Vienna, we of course made a bar a local haunt for ourselves. We had been frequenting the bar down from our hotel called Café-Restaurant Vienna. There was a young lady that called, Elief, who served us most nights and we got to know her very well. We went in there for our last meal and as we were paying she gave us a box of chocolates, and said 'thank you for being such great customers, there aren’t many people like you out there’. We gave her a big hug and tip and took a photo with her. Forever remembered!!

Just before we headed down to dinner it had started snowing and we had a heavy downfall during dinner. It was, I think, the first snowfall of the year and it was just beautiful. Such a magical way to end out time together our on White Christmas Snow holiday. Mum and I spent the next hour roaming the city square taking as many photos of the snow as possible. Playing like children. Snow is so magical.

And just like that it was all over. I took a family photo and then waved goodbye. Not as many tears this time and feeling more determined to fix London’s relationship and mine and make this year count. As it was there now remained only 358 days left of the year, and with only 1-year left of my visa, every day counts!Read more