Vienna

They say that all the things you do on the first day of the new year will happen for the rest of the year. Well, this year I’m not complaining about that statement as I spent the first 5 days of 2018 in Austria and Hungary !

A few months pass and I start thinking about going on another holiday. With friends around you constantly jetting off, it’s not hard to catch the travel bug. I spend a lot of my spare time YouTube – ing different holiday destinations. The other spare time is usually shopping.

I’ve had my eye on Vienna for a while since they showed it in Made in Chelsea. They went in the winter time. My mum’s birthday was also just around the corner so I thought it would be a perfect excuse to go on holiday, in the name of a birthday present 😉

We quickly booked the flights and hotels and then we were onto the fun part! Some say they don’t like holiday planning, but I LOVE it! The excitement of researching where we will go just makes the experience all the better. Initially, I was only looking at Vienna, but as I and my mum looked into it further, we realised it was possible to see a fair bit of Austria in the time that we had. We also squeezed in a day trip to Budapest ! This wasn’t a holiday for sleep and relaxation but for adventure.

We arrived at Vienna in the late morning (01/01/2018) so had the whole afternoon and evening to explore the city. We bought our 24-hour pass from the airport so that we could use public transport all day long, at 8 euros each. There is a small extra charge to get from the airport into the zone where the 24-hour pass is valid. After checking into our hotel, we set off by foot.

Our first stop was at Prater , where we saw the Giant Ferris wheel. We then hopped onto the underground and made our way towards Rathaus. It had already begun to get dark but the real beauty of Vienna began here. As we turned the corner onto Rathaus I actually went speechless. The buildings were just so beautiful as if stepping into a fairy tale. The grandeur of Vienna’s imperial and modern architecture gave us a sense of its rich history and culture.

We spent some time in the Christmas market meandering around the various stalls and Mum found some props for her food photography. Even though it was the New Year, the spirit of Christmas and festivities had still not ended. The ice rink was packed with people. There is something special about going on holiday during the festive period. The buzz created by Christmas and New Year is special, which was evident in both locals and holiday-makers alike.

We decided to keep walking as everywhere you looked around, you could see beautiful buildings and further roads to explore.

A little further up, we got to the University of Vienna , a work of art in its own right. I don’t think I’d be able to concentrate on my work if my university buildings looked half as good as this one did!

We passed Burgtheater – an elegant building with many statues. As we walked, around the corner was Hofburg Palace . A stunning sight that was overlooked by the city hall.

We then got to the Spanish Riding school .

As we kept on walking, we told ourselves that this was the last thing that we would see an then turn back, but Vienna wasn’t letting us! As soon as we walked a couple of yards, we got to another attraction. After meandering around, we ended up at Stephansplatz/St Stephen’s Cathedral

Austria’s most prominent national symbol and the most visited landmark in Vienna. We drunk in the intricately tiled roof and tall towers. Inside was just as beautiful and so peaceful. Now was the perfect time to return to our hotel.

In the few days in the middle of our holiday, we did day trips to other cities. As Vienna was our base throughout, we would always get dropped off by our coach by the Vienna State Opera .

The atmosphere here was second-to-none. If you could look up “opulence” in the dictionary, I’m sure that this area would be the description. Chairs were placed outside the opera house so that the public could be a part of the opera that was on indoors.

We anticipated our last day, as we hadn’t really had a chance to see the best of Vienna in the daylight! And now, we only had one day left to do it. As our hotel was overlooking Belvedere Palace – you could see a bit of it from our hotel room – we decided to start our morning off there.

The sun was still rising and bathed the palace in the most beautiful golden sunshine. The place was mostly empty apart from the local joggers. We had a gorgeous uninterrupted view of the palace – a rarity in touristic places! Recently, a Bollywood movie ‘ Ae Dil Hai Mushkil ‘ had shot here.

We then made our way to Schonbrunn Palace , which we had only driven past at night. It was super easy to get to. Schonbrunn really personified summer, the buttercup yellow and green windows added so much colour to the area in the cold wintery atmosphere. We could only imagine how much more beautiful it would look in the summer with all of the flowers. From Schonbrunn, we went back to Rathaus to see the buildings in the daylight.

As a foodie, no trip to Vienna would be complete without a visit to Naschmarkt – Vienna’s best known market with around 120 stands and restaurants offering cuisines from all around the world. One thing that always causes a bit of stress before the holiday is if we will find vegetarian food to eat . But we were literally worried for nothing! Surprisingly, there were so many vegetarian and vegan options that we were spoilt for choice! We had a late lunch here and walked the length of the market before returning to our hotel to pick up our luggage and catch our late evening flight back to London.

We had the most wonderful time whilst in Vienna. The transport system made it so easy for us as tourists to get around and there was always a friendly face to help us along the way. It is hardly surprising that Vienna has the title of the World’s best place to live for 8 years in a row!

Our journey also took us to Salzburg , Innsbruck and Budapest , Hungary.

Salzburg is the fourth largest city in Austria and is situated on the Northern edge of the Alps. It is surrounded by lakes and mountains and straddles the banks of the Salzach river. Salzburg has a rich musical heritage and is the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . Its fairytale setting of stately homes, churches and hillsides made it perfect for one of the most loved musicals in the world – The Sound of Music.

We had another early morning as today we were off to do a guided day tour to the panoramic Salzburg from Vienna . We booked our tours early from London. For today, we didn’t have to do any planning of our own except sit back and relax in the coach. Of course, you can travel by train from Vienna to Salzburg.

We were explained by our tour guide that the name Salzburg means “ salt castle “, from the salt traded along the Salzach river. He taught us a lot about Austria during our coach journey – Vienna is made up of 23 districts and 11 languages are spoken but German remains the main language. We learned that Mozart was buried in an unmarked grave, meaning that no one knows the exact location of where Mozart lays.

Our journey through snow-capped mountains and valley, along with useful information from our coach guide and listening to the classical music of Mozart brought us to the most enchanting Austrian Lake District – Salzkammergut, where you can witness clear turquoise water, snow-capped mountains and greenery in every direction, mother nature at it’s best, simply too perfect for words. It was our bad luck that that day we had the worst weather. We could not step out of the bus so we hardly took any pictures – our brain had to be our camera and make the memories instead.

After 4 hours journey, we reached Salzburg. We first had a guided walking tour of Salzburg, then some free time to explore ourselves. The guided walking tour was done by a local tour guide.

We visited the beautiful and calming baroque style Mirabell Palace first. The gardens seemed like a lovely place to sit and watch people go by if we had more time. I could only imagine just how beautiful it all would have looked in Spring and Summer with all of the flowers in full bloom!

Taking a short walk from Residenzplatz, we got to the pink-marbled Salzburg cathedral . Inside was enthralling. It was probably the most at peace I had ever felt in any cathedral even with a large number of public inside of it. It was also where Mozart was baptised.

We reached Mozart’s birthplace and you could tell we had arrived there and there was a large gaggle of tourists all trying to get a photo! I was happy to know that his birthday was only one day away from mine! Mozart’s birthplace is No 9 on the Getreidegasse, where he and his family lived on the 3rd floor.

Getreidegasse is a narrow but busy shopping street filled with international shopping chains but still maintains centuries of tradition and craft. The street is lined with beautiful doorways with many through-houses leading to other streets and squares. We loved the intricate guild signs hanging from the buildings. This was the perfect spot for a quick lunch before we carried on sightseeing.

No trip is complete without savouring local food. We visited Salzburg Mozartkugal , which is 130 years old. Still, to this day, Mozartkugel or Mozart chocolate balls are created by hand using the original recipe. Consisting of a marzipan center with pistachio and nougat, the sweet is then dipped into dark chocolate to form a perfect smooth ball.

After spending a few hours to explore ourselves, we made our journey back to Vienna to be dropped off at the Vienna State Opera. Our journey in Austria continued onto Innsbruck , Budapest and another final day in Vienna .