This morning we were served breakfast in our compartment of breads, cheese, meat, cereal yogurt (yogurt with cereal already in it), coffee, and juice. We got off the train and bought ourselves a 24h U pass (5.6 Euros) for our short time here. We took the U6 Flor to Alt Strauss to our hotel which was really easy to find, just took a left then a right and there we are! The hotel already had a room ready so we gladly showered and planned our day. All night on a train isn’t very fun.

We first headed to Hoher Markt to check out their special clock. We got there just in time since at noon, the characters in the clock all cycle through. After the clock, we went to check out Stephansdom and find a place to sit and have some Viennese coffee. We stopped by Cafe Hawelka on Dorotheergasse 6-8 (recommended in our guidebook). We didn’t really know how to order so asked the waiter and he brought us something, both quite good. It’s so smart they serve a glass of water with the coffee. It’s good to prevent getting dehydrated and helps to cleanse the coffee breathe a bit. It was expensive though, cost us 11 Euros for 2 coffee and a slice of apple strudel!

We went to explore some more to find a place for lunch and we stopped by a place near Technische Universitat. We tried their weinerschnitzel and fried fish. We originally though that weinerschnitzel was some sort of sausage but is actually a deep fried piece of meat. The restaurant owners of this establishment were really nice though and helped us to translate the menu.

After our filling lunch, we took the U to Schonbrum to see the castle and walk through the grounds. It’s quite spectacular, I wonder how many people it takes to maintain the place. We had a nice undisturbed nap on a bench underneath the tree lined walkway.

Then we headed to Schwedenplatz near the river to walk around before walking back to where we started out day to have a snack at Zanoni Zanoni. I had the sacher torte and Ron tried the nuss torte (nuts) of course accompanied by coffee. The whipped cream is so yummy!

We went shopping a bit and I got myself a nice pair of earrings. We grabbed a quick bite at a sausage stand. The “bun” is very smart in that they use a baguette, cut off one end, then use a device (basically a stick), to poke a hole through the bread before putting the sausage in it and mustard and ketchup. Much better than dealing with a bun that is slit horizontally, less potential leakage.

At our hotel, we had reserved tickets for a Mozart Konzerte at Konzerthaus. The show started at 8:15pm. I was impressed with the instruments but not so much with the soloists. I felt like the man and woman separately were fine but singing together had little chemistry. The conductor kept the concert interesting as he tried to involve the audience with clapping during the performance. The costumes were pretty cool, keeping with the period of the music.

It ended around 10pm and we headed back to our hotel. We were surprised to find that they sell beer in their vending machine and it was only 1.3 Euros for a 0.5L can. We ended the evening with watching some TV and having vending machine beer (and it was good beer too!).

If you can’t see the slideshow above, click HERE.