After spending a couple of days at home after visiting the Kingdom (previous post), then I was off to Vienna, Austria, where my friend Laura resides. SunExpress offered direct flights on Fridays and Mondays making it the perfect weekend getaway. And pretty darn affordable at around $260.
Laura had visited me in Izmir back in October and offered a reciprocal visit. I didn’t hesitate to take her up on the offer. I always prefer to visit places where I can stay with a local, or a place where someone is from and has connections and ties to the place (Laura went to university in Vienna, and she and her husband have a flat there now)–it only enhances the experience of a place.
I can say that I loved Vienna–the architecture, history, art, and FOOD! And I visited in the deep of winter, I can only imagine how beautiful it would be in spring, summer, or fall. As you can see in my featured photo above–I couldn’t get enough of the sausages. The Kasekrainer–pork sausage with emmenthaler cheese inside–was my favorite!
After arrival on Friday afternoon and dropping my luggage off at Laura’s flat, we headed out for a traditional Viennese dinner near the Museum Quarter. After dinner we attended a Mozart and Strauss concert. It was snowing on our walk to the theater which made me happy–real snow in a cold place. While I am happy to NOT live with snow all winter, I do miss seeing and feeling it in the winter months. I grew up in a cold northern place and winter doesn’t feel like winter without snow.
I can confirm that while the concert was in a beautiful setting, the musical acoustics great, and no doubt the musicians talented–I can say that classical music is not my preference. I’m glad I went once, but I wouldn’t attend again. BUT I’m sure for fans of classical music it would be wonderful.
On Saturday we headed off to Schönbrunn Palace, primary summer residence of the Habsburg Dynasty. To be honest my knowledge of the Habsburgs had been quite limited until just before this trip. That’s because I had spent part of my winter watching my way through Timothy Snyder’s Yale Course of lectures about “The Making of Modern Ukraine,” and episode 12 featured prominently the Hapsburgs. Laura hung out in the cafe while I took the self-guided audio tour through the Palace. It was cool! Then we met up to walk around the grounds a little before moving on to our next venue: Art in the Upper Belvedere Museum. There we toured to see numerous paintings by Gustav Klimt (including “The Kiss”) and works by Egon Schiele, as well as many others.
Then we had beers at an Irish Pub followed by another Viennese dinner out. I grew to really enjoy the cocktail known as a Hugo Spritz while on this trip. I know….it’s supposed to be a summer sipper….but I enjoyed it just as much in the winter.
Sunday had us up and on our way for a second full day of touring. We stopped in for a McDonald’s breakfast–something that the McDonald’s in Turkey do not offer. I really love a sausage/egg/cheese mcMuffin and/or biscuit. So delicious.
After breakfast, we were off to see more art, this time visiting the Leopold Museum located in the Museum Quarter. We set a time clock and went our separate ways so that we could each pursue those exhibitions of most interest. For me that was the extensive Egon Schiele collection–and that’s “thanks” to my niece Raven. She was the person to tell me who Egon was, a few years back, when we talked about art some. I had never heard of him before then. My favorites of his are not what he is most known for (seems to be common for me–for example, I don’t like O’Keeffe’s flowers, preferring her southwestern landscapes and cityscapes). I liked his landscapes, well more like house-scapes, best of all, and the still life above, though I certainly enjoyed walking the halls of the gallery and experiencing all of his works (many, many self portraits included). He was an interesting character, for sure, and sadly succumbed at the young age of 28 to the Spanish flu.
After our art walk we headed into the city to have traditional apple strudel at Cafe Schwarzenberg. But first I had to have a sausage, with mustard, of course! The setting was beautiful, the strudel divine! And to top things off, Falco was once there.
After our sustenance break we headed over to the Hofburg to tour part of that palace AND to visit the Sisi Museum. Along the way we paused to take in, and pop into, St Stephen’s Cathedral. Laura had shared with me about Sisi while she was here with me in Turkey, and I enjoyed learning more about this unique woman each day (and yet plan to watch the Netflix series titled “The Empress” which is about her). We literally closed the museum down and then walked to a beautiful building not far away, the Palmenhaus, for drinks and our final dinner. It was a beautiful setting and the food was good.
Monday was a very chill and quiet morning. We visited the local grocery store so that I could purchase sausages and wine to take home. Then we went down the street from her flat to one of Laura’s regular cafes for brunch and coffee before I caught the subway to head to the airport. I have to say I was very impressed with the ease of public transport access across Vienna–a huge network of subways and trams to take you most anywhere you want to go. And from the airport there is the CAT–City Airport Train–which is fast and direct and what I took both ways.
I arrived home on Monday evening and had the rest of the week to meet up with friends in Izmir and to tour/vet my apartment options for next year. Yes, I am sad to report that I have to move a second time in one year. The landlord of my beautiful seaside apartment claims their son will be moving in. That is often code, in Turkey, for a landlord reclaiming an apartment so that they can jack up the rent beyond the allotted/allowed annual increase formula. I believe I may be the first employee of ACI to ever leave (aka graduate) the Lojman (school-owned apartment building) for an off-site apartment only to be forced to return to the Lojman. That said, I am grateful to our administration for allowing me to tour the Lojman and measure the three options available to determine which one will be the best fit for the furniture I acquired in this last move–most important of which is my large and luxurious king bed. But that will be a post for another day in the future.
For now I’ll wrap things up saying that I loved Vienna and would absolutely visit again. There is so much to see–history, art, culture, and of course FOOD and drink. It was not a cheap place to visit, but having a friend host you can ease that aspect. Laura was a wonderful host and made a great itinerary based on my interests and preferences, all the while also taking advantage of visiting places she’d wanted to, but hadn’t yet. As we all know, having company gives us the time and opportunity to see our cities/countries in a new light and to visit those sites that we might otherwise miss.