premshree

After having some food at Donau Tower, I took the U1 to Karlsplatz, and then the U4 to Schönbrunn, home to The Schönbrunn Palace, and various other things of interest: a zoo, a public maze, The Gloriette, etc.

I didn’t go inside the palace (12€, I think). Instead, I decided to walk up to the Gloriette. Yes, there’s a café there too; it was closed, though (I think it’s open in summers). This was probably the awesomest (and most romantic) place I’ve visited here. And the view from here is awesome too:

I was feeling hungry at this time, so I looked if there’s any of the recommended restaurants somewhere close. I found Pizzeria Mafiosi off a lane on Mariahilferstraße (and also very close to Westbahnof). Anyway, it was a really long walk, and I was dead tired. I had a mug of beer and a huge pizza. All in 5.7€. Made me realize what suckers the Pizza Hut (and the likes) folks back here are. Anyway, the place is nice, but wasn’t necessarily worth the walk.

I headed back to the hostel, took some rest, and then decided to visit St. Marx Friedhof (St. Marx cemetery). Mozart was buried here. (Beyond St. Marx Friedhof is Zentralfriedhof where Beethooven and other famous artists are buried.) So I took the U3 to Volkstheater, then the U1 to Karlsplatz, and finally tram 71 from Schwarzenbergplatz to St. Marx Friedhof. It was quite late by this time—around 18:00 or so, and so couldn&rsqauo;t enter the cemetery (closes at 17:00).

Now there was a Chris Rea concert at 20:00 at Guglgaße (it’s at another end). I was *way* too tired, so ditched. Wish I had attended.

All pictures from Schönbrunn »

This ends the Vienna series. Hope you’ve enjoyed them. All pictures from Vienna »

I’m hoping to go backpacking around Europe (Amsterdam, Bavaria, Prague, Kraków, Bratislava, Budapest — something like that, I guess) later this year. Let’s see.

After Prater, I took the U1 to Donau city—Vienna DC. This city, on the river Danube, is where many of the offices and newer residential areas have come up. This is the place where all the modern buildings are. In other words, nothing much to see here. But this is where you need to get off to visit the Danube Tower. To get there, get off the station and walk across all the buildings you see. You’ll see the Danube tower in the middle of a huge park.

It’s 165 m high. Entrance is 5.3€. The lift takes about 30 seconds to get you on top. And... there’s a café and restaurant on top. Yeah. I had coffee and Topfenpalatschinken (pancakes filled with sweet cream cheese, served with custard cream and chocolate). The restaurant rotates (it takes 26 minutes for a complete rotation), which means you can sit at one place and get a 360°-view of Vienna.

One can also bungee jump from the tower (probably the only place in Vienna?).

All pictures from Donau city »

The previous night, after having walked quite a bit—from Westbahnof to Otto-Bauer-Gasse (that’s where Rani is)—I realized that this place is probably not very big. So, next day morning I walked all the way from Westbahnof to Naschmarkt (walk on Mariahilferstraße until MuseumsQuartier, turn right and walk towards the Karlsplatz station; again, you’ll know what you’re looking for). The Naschmarkt is a Viennese fruit and vegetable market opened in 1780. There are quite a few (cheap) wine shops, lot of patisseries, and a few cafés on one side.

I walked the length of the place, and then settled for some coffee and a sandwich. (I was looking really hard for this one recommended café, but I couldn’t find the damn place.)

After walking around some more, I took the U1 from Karlsplatz to Praterstern, the home of the 65-meter high Giant Ferris Wheel. The Prater fair is “a Viennese institution”. Too bad I didn’t care to find out whether the place would be open (open during summer only).

Behind this area is a huge park, about 21 km long and 250 m wide.

After a bit, I just walked in some random direction. I found nice colors:

More pictures here and here.

After Stephansdom, I went to the Hofburg Imperial Palace. Looking for the Hofburg Imperial Palace, rather. It’s walking distance. I don’t remember which street I walked through; it won’t be difficult for you to figure out in any case. Maybe you could walk to the Opera, and figure out from there. I didn’t really go inside the palace or anything (I don’t even know if one can go in—it serves as the residence of the President of Austria) but, anyway, the walk to the place is fun. Looking at the map now, I think I walked through Heldenplatz. Yeah, positive. (Sidenote: if you need to use a loo, there’s one in here, in Heldenplatz. It’s just outside the entrance to the Imperial Palace. 1€ to use the loo; 0.5€ to use the urinal. Just mentioning this because the loos in stations are not very clean.)

After that I headed to the Kunsthistorisches Museum (entrance: 10€). Again, walking distance. Opposite this is the Naturhistorisches Museum (I didn’t go there). Photography is permitted in most (all?) museums here, but you’re not allowed to use the flash, of course. Here are some pictures:

I then randomly walked across the road and landed at MuseumsQuartier. Just walked around there a bit before heading to a kaffe haus. I took a random street to look for a café. I ended at this small place called Cafe Kafka. The staff didn’t speak English, so I had an interesting time trying to explain what I wanted.

It was about 15:00 or so at this point, so I still had lot of daylight. Again, I walked on a random street, and I saw... snow! Lots of it. I had never seen snow before I came to Vienna.

Later in the night, after taking some rest in the dorm, I headed out to look for one of the recommended bars. Then, halfway, I decided I didn’t want to go to bar alone. While walking back to the hostel, I cam across Rani, an Indian restaurant recommended by folks here. I had no intention to have Indian food, but I wanted to check the place out anyway. People like it! The place is quite cheap (vegetarian curries costs between two and three euros), and servings are large. I mean really large. It’s run by Indians (Punjabis); they’ve been in Vienna for about ten years. (Sidenote: most Indians I saw in Vienna were newspaper vendors from Punjab.) I just had a mug of beer and left.

I’ve uploaded quite a few pictures today. All pictures from Vienna so far »

The most prominent place you’d see on any map of Vienna is Stephansplatz. That’s where St. Stepehen’s cathedral is. Getting there is straightforward: just take the U3 from Westbahnof to Stephansplatz. Come out of the station, and you’ll know what you need to look for.

I had gotten there pretty early—somewhere around 7 AM (yeah!). And that, I think, was a bad idea. There’s not many people around at that time. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I just walked down toward Schwedenplatz, then turned around and walked down toward the Opera. Turned around (again), and walked toward the Opera (again), on Rotenturmstraße. I was hungry at this point (Vienna is known for its cafés, so I decided that I’ll do all my eating only from those places), so I ended up at Daniel Moser. Not a very big café, but it’s good enough, and not very expensive—4.7€ (I think) for a Viennese breakfast.

Now was a good time to go into the cathedral. When I got there, there were loads of people around—a lot of them tourists (mostly from Japan). The cathedral is quite nice; nothing fentabulous, though. I walked around inside the cathedral for a while.

The nice thing about this place is the South Tower. I asked a few folks how to get on top of the tower. There used to be an entrance from inside the cathedral, but for some reason it was closed. Anyway, so you need to enter from outside (exit the cathedral, take a left, walk around).

This is the view from the top (click on the pic for a larger view):

Like you can see, climbing the tower is a rewarding experience.

Pictures from and around Stephansplatz »

Sleeping: If you have loads of money, you probably can stay in a fancy/non-fancy hotel. I didn’t want to spend too much money, so I decided to stay in a hostel. I stayed at Wombat’s Vienna (voted one of the best hostels in the world, etc.; they have one in Munich, and are going to have another one in Vienna sometime in May 2006). The place is awesome. They do their best to make sure you don’t pay more than you need to: 16€/night in a four bed dorm; eat-all-you-can breakfast for 3€, etc. Bed linen, pillows, etc. are provided. Bring your own towel and toiletries.

Wombat’s has a pretty good bar too. It’s almost always packed in the nights.

When you check-in, they give you a map of Vienna that has pointers to places to visit, cafés—kaffe haus, as they are called here, bars/pubs, and dance clubs. Vienna has very good public transport—the underground trains, trams, and buses. Using the map you can easily figure out how to get to one place from another.

Some pictures from Wombat’s »

Getting there: Just follow the instructions mentioned here. It’s at a place called Westbahnof. Trains are available every few minutes, so it’s a good idea to use the S-Bahn and then U3 to get there (3€), instead of using the City Airport Train (8€).

Other things: Instructions/information in most places are available only in German, so it’s a good thing to learn a thing or two. At least, make sure you know common words like ausgang (exit), eingang (entrance), Straße (street), gasse (lane), etc.

Unlike most Europeans (or at least the impression given by books like Lonely Planet), Austrians are a very friendly bunch. (A couple of times, I was actually offered help while I was trying to figure something on the map.)

You can see a *lot* of Vienna in a couple of days, but you’ll end up not seeing a lot too. But I recommend not to plan things to the smallest detail. It’s more fun to not have a direction.

I have never felt so cold before!

Damn. Weird keyboard, this. Laters

My visa for Israel just came through. I’ll be speaking at OSDC::Israel::2006. 26-28 February. Larry Wall will be there, and so will Audrey Tang (of Pugs fame). Should be fun. (All this assuming I’m not terribly bogged down with work.)

I’ll maybe speak to Larry about Perl and Ruby and all that stuff if I get a chance. ;-) You Ruby guys, anything you’d like me to ask Larry?

Need to apply for my Schengen visa now, as I intend to spend the weekend in Vienna.