Saturday September 21 – We caught the train to meet our friends Val & Harold in Vienna, so we have to say goodbye to Prague.
The old building of the Prague Train Station. Initially we thought we were at the wrong place, but happily it took us back to the 1970s Soviet Sci-fi station. Czech out the countryside.
Vienna
We were greeted by our friend Val who kindly navigated us through Vienna’s subway to our hotel. After checking in Val showed us around Vienna.
Us & Val at Maria Theresien-Platz.I think this is the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. There’s two large & pretty identical museums in Maria Theresein-Platz.The Hofburg Imperial Palace. The day we went through there was a rave & bungee jumping.The fountain in front of the Albertina Art Gallery.Aussie Aussie Aussie
St Stephen’s Cathedral
We headed to meet Harold at St Stephen’s Cathedral in the centre of Vienna. The current church dates to 1130s & was completed in 1578, thanks Wikipedia & Harold.
St Stephen’s is impressive The Cathedral has these really amazing coloured roof tiles. Stunning
Dinner
Val & Harold kindly organised dinner at a restaurant specialising in Austrian food nearby. It was very good. A key learning from Vienna is that Schnitzel is giant sized & covers the entire plate. Well actually that’s not true. It’s bigger than your plate. I was definitely in a happy place. Unfortunately we didn’t get any photos, so you will have to trust me on this.
Jesuit Church
After dinner Val & Harold continued to show us around. We first stopped at the nearby Jesuit Church.
The Jesuit Church. It’s also the University chapel. It’s in the Baroque style, & completed in 1627.We were the only people in there. It was staggeringly beautiful.
The tours continues
Harold showed us Schönlaterngasse, which means the Beautiful Lantern Lane. It’s the home of a Viennese myth about Baker’s assistant who defeats a dragon down a well.
There’s a dragon there somewhere.Nearby is a restaurant, which is in old cellars that go down three storeys underground & dates to 1560s.St Stephen’s at night from a rooftop bar After a quick stop for ice cream, we stop for coffee at Cafe Korb, which is a Viennese institution. It was pretty busy, Harold is a regular & was able to rustle a table for us,From Cafe Korb we pass the Plague Column, a baroque monument to the end of the 1679 plague epidemic in Vienna The Loos Bar. Not what you think. It’s named after Adolf Loos (pronounced ‘laws’) was a famous Austrian/Czech architect who was one of the first modernists.The Loos’ American Bar is pretty famous in architectural circles and dates to 1907.
Leave a comment