Today was the last full day in Wien for me and my travel partner was leaving in the afternoon to head back to Maastricht (she was on her way to Barcelona!). Our day started at the Hundertwasserhaus, an apartment building designed by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. The building was originally a low income apartment complex and now is a tourist attraction. While no tourists are allowed inside, many still come to look at the building. As we approached, I could see where the architecture switched from typical buildings to that of the Hundertwasserhaus. The colors of the building were crazy, with random columns here and there. My eyes didn't know where to look first - there was something interesting to look at everywhere my eyes went.
Next to the building is the Hundertwasser Village. This village was designed for visitors who came to see the Hundertwasser Haus could experience what it would be like inside the building. The village is now filled with tourist shops and some art galleries. The design though, was just as colourful as the building across the street. There were no straight lines and everything was so fascinating to look at.
We next headed to the "Ring" Boulevard (Ringstrasse). This road circles the city centre and goes past important buildings such as the Hofburg Palace and the Austrian Parliament building. We went to look at the Rathaus, or city hall. The day following my visit was National Austrian Day and they were in the process of setting up tents for the celebrations.
The Parliament was next. Despite the two buildings being really close (almost neighbours) they varied quite a bit in terms of architecture which I found a bit odd. In front of the building is a fountain depicting Athena.
We wandered some more without a set destination in mind. We stumbled upon the Museumsquartier, but we had decided - no more museums! Finally we ended up by the Hofburg Palace were more tents and military displays were being set up in preparation for the next day.
There were a number of interesting food stalls set up, but we planning on visiting a cafe soon for some cake. The Sacher Hotel is known around the world as the makers of the Original Sacher Torte. The word "original" is in the name because of a dispute between a competing shop, Demel, over who really had the original. The Demel cake is now called "Demels Sachertorte."
The cake consists of two layers of dense, not overly sweet chocolate cake (traditionally a sponge cake) with a thin layer of apricot jam in the middle and dark chocolate icing on the top and sides. It is traditionally served with whipped cream without any sugar in it as most Viennese consider the Sachertorte too "dry" to be eaten on its own.
Source: Wikipedia
So with all this hype about the cake, I had to go try it. Honestly? It didn't seem all that remarkable. It wasn't too sweet, which is good, and I found it a bit too dry even with the cream.
After resting for a bit in the cafe, we headed on a series of musical encounters. I wanted to visit the monuments of various composers around the city. First stop was Mozart.
Then it was off to Stadtpark to see Strauss, Beethoven and Schubert (respectively).
After our walk in the park, my travel partner headed to the airport while I went in search of my homestay for the night. I had a high school friend doing her exchange in Vienna and we had arranged to meet up that night for dinner and some wandering around the city. We walked through the Naschmarkt, sort of a farmer's market in the middle of Vienna, visited the Vienna Prater, before meeting her friend for dinner. We went to a very Austrian pub and I tried a couple of Austrian food items. First up was Sturm, called federweisser in Germany, is a partially fermented wine and is only available during certain times of the year (usually early fall).
It was really sweet and didn't taste like wine at all. But towards the end of the night it really didn't sit all that well. We ordered two dishes of Knödel to share between the three of us.
They're essentially a dumpling made from potato with a meat filling served with some gravy. I found it to be really really salty, but otherwise not bad.
I remember we were sitting at the bar eating and taking pictures of our food. Apparently that caused quite a scene as many of the locals didn't understand what we were doing. A number of people were looking at us and laughing silently and we were oblivious until someone sitting across from us at the bar came over loudly and said enough with the picture taking - he was going to take a picture for us so we could start eating. And so that is what he did and now we have a picture (and all the local's probably think Asian tourists are crazy...)
And so ended my stay in the Austrian capital. I went to bed relatively early that night as I had to get up at 5am the next morning to catch a 4 hour train to Prague!
To see more pictures click here.
Read the rest of the series: Day I, Day II and Day III.
For some tips on travel in Austria click here.
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