Vienna

We've been meaning to write a post about Vienna for some time, but never got around to. SO... here is a letter we wrote to a few people that we met in Berlin who were from Vienna.

Sophia and Stefan,

Wow! Where to begin...?

Thank you so very much for all of your wonderful information and reccomendations for Vienna. We wanted to let you know how helpful it was to us.

Our first night in town we ate at Zwölf-Apostelkeller. Andy had a (huge) pork schnitzle with potato salad and Marisa had some sort of vegetarian spatzle. We both enjoyed a 1/4 liter of Gruner Veltliner with our meal, and some Gurwerstreminer afterwards. Everything was delicious and very reasonalby priced. The ambiance was great, we loved the vaulted cielings.

We visited the MAK museum and afterwards ate at the attached restaurant. The museum was very interesting and the meal was great, too. Andy had a pasta with bacon, cabbage and chestnuts, while Marisa ordered a creamy onion soup and chestnut pancakes with chocolate rum ice cream for dessert. Again: amazing!

We visited St. Stephans Cathedral, although we didn't climb to the top, and took a ride on the Ferris wheel. We didn't make it to the Mozart Museum, but we did see one of his operas, Die Zauberflöte.

On our last night we had a fabulous dinner at Haas Beisl. The place was great and had a very "homey" atmoshphere. Our waiter was very nice and helpful in picking out our meal. Marisa particularly enjoyed all of the vegetarian options, and ended up choosing the zucchini/potato burgers in what we think was a saffron cream sauce. He told Andy that November was the time for goose in Austria, so he had that. It was delicious and came with two dumplings and rotkraut (cooked red cabbage) on the side. Truly a great meal all around!

After this meal we wandered up the street a bit to find a bottle of wine, and stopped into a wine store just up the street. There happened to be a tasting put on by a local vintner. After tasting a few and chatting, we mentioned your names and though he seemed a bit buzzed, he was fairly certain that he knew of you or had met you both. Unfortunately, we lost his business card and couldn't tell you the name of the vinyard. Anyway, it is a small world!

There were so many more of your reccomendations that we were hopeful to try, but just didn't have the time. However, we will certainly retain all of your info and share it with our friends and anyone we meet traveling to lovely Vienna! We can't thank you enough for taking the time to forward all of that info to us and for welcoming us to your dinner in Berlin. It was such a pleasure to meet you both! We wish you the very best of luck in getting the rest of the plans finished for your wine bar. May it be a smashing success! If you ever find yourselves anywhere near our home, we would love to meet up or offer you a place to stay.


The very best,

- Andy and Marisa



......also:

We paid three euro a piece for the opera tickets- standing room nosebleed seats, where we could only see about 2/3 of the stage, but a great experience nonetheless.

We couchsurfed with Sebastian, Mathias's (from London/Innsbruck) twin brother for two nights after staying in hostel for the fist two. One night we stayed up chatting with he and his roommate, and the next day he gave us a walking tour of the city with his friend, it was great!

The MAK museum is a design museum. The exhibits range from contemporary fashion to dining room chairs from some period of Austrian history that we can't remember, to art deco sculpture, and everywhere in between. It was definitely a change from most of the museums that we have been visiting.

We went to an interesting museum that showcased the miracle of sound and had an array of engauging, interactive exhibits that demonstrated the many phenomina that occur when you experience sound and the ways in which you percieve it in your mind. We had lots of fun here. There were also a couple of floors dedicated to Austria's finest composers their respective surviving memoribilia.