Now or Never

We only scheduled two nights and one full day in Vienna so after arriving in the early afternoon and checking into our teeny tiny hostel room, we set out to explore the sites of the inner city, about a 30 minute walk away. First stop was the Hofburg Palace which used to be the imperial palace for the Habsburg dynasty (whose reign was one of the longest in Europe at ~700 years) but now serves as the residence of the President of Austria.

We spent time meandering through town and after stopping for a quick bite and a drink at one of Vienna’s classic cafes, we headed over to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, the most important religious building in Vienna. The public can walk inside and on Sundays (which it happened to be), watch a live service. The scale and artistic detail of this cathedral absolutely blew us away.

Now to rewind a bit…while we were in Prague we realized the day we were arriving in Vienna happened to be the first (American) football Sunday of the season. So after a bit of research we found and made a reservation at a local sports bar, called Pointers, that plays NFL on Sunday so we could watch the Niners game. After getting our fill of Baroque and Gothic architecture we headed over to catch the start of the game.

Unfortunately the Niners lost but besides the bad outcome of the game, we had a great time. The bar was filled with locals who happen to be fans of football. We even sat next to a group of Austrian dudes with multiple laptops out watching different games and tracking their fantasy stats 🙂

The following morning we went on a run to check out the Schönbrunn Palace, the summer residence of the same Habsburg family. Apparently the Habsburgs spent winters at the Hofburg Palace (pictured earlier in this post) and summers here…less than 5 miles away.

After our run we decided to come back and spend the day on the Schönbrunn Palace grounds, have lunch, and just relax. The complex is absolutely massive and even includes the oldest operating zoo in the world (Tiergarten Schönbrunn). We highly recommend coming here if you find yourself in Vienna!

Our next stop is only a 2.5 hour train ride away. Budapest, we’re coming for you!