Living on Swiss Time: Vienna

Last Thursday was a holiday for Doc, so we decided to head out of town. We opted to go to Vienna for a long weekend. I've always wanted to go there to see the Schönbrunn and the art museums, as well as eat lots of cakes. The city was just as beautiful as what you see in photos; but, I was really disappointed by the lackadaisical approach to crime and disorder issues in one of the city's main U-Bahn stations.

The food options were really good. We enjoyed a Viennese dinner with slightly fermented grape juice (called sturm) at a Heuriger in Grinzing, a town on the outskirts of Vienna. We also found an Australian pub and a great Japanese restaurant. Doc had a yummy noodle soup, and I had fish and veggies--and even managed fine with chopsticks! I've been quite nervous about that and have been practicing since Doc and I are taking a two-week vacation to Japan in the spring. Even the falafel sandwich that I bought at a stand on the street was tasty. The deserts were fabulous. We had various chocolate cakes, including one with layers of chocolate creme, one with some marzipan, one we think had rum in it, and the famous sachertorte. Even though the sachertorte is made from my two of my favorite things--chocolate and apricots--and the combination is usually outstanding, the sachertorte, surprisingly, was just average. The dessert I ended up liking the best had yellow cake, eggnog cream, and white chocolate. I really wish I knew how to make that one!

While in Vienna, we visited the Schönbrunn Palace, St. Stephen's Cathedral, the Hofburg, the Austrian Parliament, the Kunsthistorishes Museum, Belvedere Palace, and the Hundertwasserhaus. Here are some of our photos: