FALL SKETCH TRIP Part 4: Vienna, Austria

The beautiful streets of Vienna, Austria

The final part of our sketch trip was by far the most relaxing and the most enjoyable for me.  But when we first arrived in Vienna at 5:00 am on Saturday, we ran into a small problem: we had nowhere to stay.

It turned out that my friend Andrea had accidentally booked a hostel for Weimar, Germany, instead of Wien, Austria, so we were temporarily stranded in the middle of Vienna on a dark, cold morning without even a café to sit it.  Fortunately, everyone decided that it would make more sense to pay for a hotel room than to wait for the hostels to open.  A friendly employee at one nice hotel actually told us about a less expensive one down the street.  So we settled in at the Hotel Savoy, which was extremely nice on the inside but only about 40€ per person.  We actually got in TWO nights of sleep for the price of one, because the concierge kindly let us go up to our rooms right then and there.  So after a 4 or 5 hour nap, we got up and headed to a nearby market for breakfast.  This was the second good decision of the day, because we got some needed coffee to-go and then some pastries and chocolate strawberries from a food stand.  We walked north along the Mariahilfer Straße (pronounced strass, as in "street"), which had lots of cute shopping and restaurants.  After passing what seemed like 20 important, stately-looking buildings, we approached the gardens behind the Hofburg Palace.  Here we found a statue of Vienna's most beloved former resident, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, whose name we would soon be seeing literally everywhere in town.

Walking along the Mariahilfer Straße

One of many tributes to the composer Mozart

We played around and climbed some trees in the garden for a few minutes before walking eastward towards the Staatsoper, the famous Vienna State Opera, where we found lots of people dressed in 18th-century attire.  It turned out they were selling tickets, so we talked to one of them and got some cheap tickets for a show later that evening.  Then we walked north to the Stephansplatz, the central area of town,  where the Stephansdom church towered over everything else.  I grabbed some currywurst and a Zipfer beer for lunch, after which Hyein and I visited Mozart's old house.  It was a simple museum, but it was cool to imagine the prodigious Mozart inviting over the young Ludwig van Beethoven and telling him, right in that very sitting room, "Everyone better watch out, because you're going to make a name for yourself in this world."

The Stephansdom on the Stephansplatz

We all reconvened at the hotel and set out again to find dinner before the concert.  Unfortunately, we had taken a little too long to get ready, and we found ourselves with less than an hour before show-time and in an area without many restaurants.  Feeling ashamed, we went into a TGIF's and explained that we had to eat really fast.  It wasn't such a bad decision, though, because the restaurant was having a very festive Halloween party and we got free desserts at the end of our meal.  We rushed over to the Musikverein, another one of Vienna's many beautiful concert halls, and found our seats in the beautifully decorated hall.  The concert was a good one, with the orchestra performing Mozart and Strauss in traditional attire, and there were even some funny moments of audience participation.  (I think I would've preferred to hear some Beethoven piano concertos, but it was entertaining nonetheless.)

Inside the Musikverein concert hall

Afterwards, we walked north to the "Bermuda Triangle," a lively area with tons of bars lining 3 main streets.  We entered Die Brennerei Schnapsbar and found a table in the super-crowded, Halloween-decorated bar.  I ended up sitting near a girl and a guy from Germany who were very friendly, so they helped us order some beers and this one girly wine drink from the bartender.  It was a fun night, but we eventually decided to head home for a real night's sleep (the first one in three days).

The next day, I got up early to go see the Hofburg Palace after a really good breakfast at the hotel.  I absolutely loved the decorations at the enormous palace complex: everything from the furniture and tableware to the candelabras and royal outfits were all originals.  It felt like the closest thing to a "Beauty and the Beast" castle that I've seen so far, and it was interesting to learn about the Hapsburg dynasty.  After that, I went across town to the Haus der Musik, a really cool modern museum that dealt with both the scientific and the historical aspects of music.  It had a lot of really cool, trippy exhibits with strange noises coming from all around in dark rooms.  On the uppermost levels, it featured some awesome, dramatic exhibitions about Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, and Mahler, etc. etc., even showcasing some of their original manuscripts.  The best parts were (a) conducting a symphony with a hi-tech conductor's wand on a big-screen TV, and (b) even better, getting to play a piano for the first time in two months in the lobby afterwards!  It seems like I'm going to have to move to Vienna, not Paris, so I can be surrounded by people who appreciate music as much as I do.

Inside the fancy Hofburg Palace

In the afternoon, I ran into my friend Kara and we walked to see the Rathaus (city council) and some other landmarks on the western side of town.  All of us met up again an hour later for our last meal/snack in Vienna.  Having heard that Vienna is actually the "coffee capital of the world" -- and not quite believing it at first -- we went into the fancy Café Mozart to look at its coffee and dessert menu.  It was absolutely unreal how many different types of coffee and cakes they offered... I settled for a less expensive drink and a small piece of cake (some of the coffees were over 12€!!) but was extremely satisfied nevertheless.  We soon had to hop on a train to the airport to fly back to Paris, but I was sad to leave so soon.  (So many coffee flavors left untasted!)

View of the Rathaus from afar

Something about Vienna made it my favorite part of the entire sketch trip -- it was probably a combination of the relaxed atmosphere, the welcoming attitude of its inhabitants, and the proliferation of amazing coffee and chocolate products.  I would go back there in a heartbeat... Hopefully, by the next time I travel there, I'll be able to speak better German and will have some new piano compositions to perform!