bvlenci

In mid-August, we made a snap decision to take a night train to Vienna, for a quick visit to the city.

This summer, there had been a temporary NightJet route to Vienna from Le Marche, Italy, where we live. The route is temporary because the usual route from Rome to Vienna was interrupted by work on the tracks. The temporary route is only available until the 10th of September.

I had asked for advice about this short trip earlier

https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/short-trip-to-vienna-1716745/

I also contributed to a topic about overnight trains, and today I posted an update about our NightJet trip here, for anyone who is considering overnight train travel.

https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/overnight-train-ideas-gratefully-received-1716650/

Briefly, our trip out to Vienna on the NightJet wasn't without problems, but the return trip was much more pleasant.

We were supposed to arrive in Vienna at around 8 AM, but the train arrived more than 3 hours late, so we really couldn't do any sightseeing that morning.

We took a taxi to our hotel, the Austria Trend Hotel Europa, on Neuermarkt, very near the Gothic St. Stephen's Cathedral. Check-in time was 3 PM, but they had a room ready when we got there at 11, so we were able to check in immediately.

The hotel was very comfortable, and the staff were always ready to help. We had the Comfort double, which is a little larger than the standard double, and has a small couch.




The bathroom had generous shelf space, something that's sadly lacking in many hotels. The toilet was in a separate little room, which I think is fairly common in Northern Europe, but maybe not in hotels.

After a little rest to make up for lost sleep (in what my husband called a "cattle car"), we went out to find lunch.

Neuermarkt is a pedestrian square, which was probably once a market. It's lined with shops, a few pasticcerie, and our hotel. It was lively, but not crowded all day and in the early evening, but it wasn't noisy.

We ate at the Konditorei Oberlaa, which quickly became our favorite place to eat. I had wiener schnitzel and parsley potatoes, and my husband had breaded chicken cutlets and salad. Both excellent and reasonably priced.




After lunch, we visited the Cathedral. You can visit the left nave gratis, but to see the rest of the church, you have to pay €6, which includes access to an audio guide for your phone; you connect your phone to the wifi of the cathedral, and the guide opens on your screen automatically. They give you a little map, with ten spots marked, and at each spot you can listen to an explanation.




When we got to the baptistery, we encountered a family waiting for the baptism of their baby girl. We had a quick look, and a smile for the baby, and left.

Among the many works of art and faith in the cathedral, we were especially impressed with the Wiener Neustadt altar, a 15th century double triptych altar. The side panels are normally closed except on Sundays and other feast days. We were there on a Saturday afternoon, which was probably already Sunday in the liturgical sense.

​​​​​​When the panels are open, carved wooden figures show events in the life of the Virgin Mary.



This altar can be seen from the north nave, where entry is free. However, the modest cost of €6 to see everything close up is well worth it.

There is also an intricately carved Gothic stone pulpit, with figures of doctors of the church.



We had an early supper at Wein & Co, Flagship store, near the Dom. This is a wine shop with a vast selection of wines for sale. The waiter was a little taken aback that we didn't want wine, but he cheerfully served us water. Marcello had a vegetarian quiche and salad, and I had tajane with butter and sage.




The reason for the early supper was that I had bought tickets to an organ and saxophone concert at the Franziskanerkirche at 7:30 PM. I found this concert, and other interesting events, on the official Vienna event calendar

https://www.wien.info/en

I had bought the tickets online, and printed them at home. Looking at them shortly before the concert, I realized that the tickets didn't include the name of the event, nor its date, time, or location. It also didn't have our names! I thought I must have printed the wrong thing. But it clearly said, "This is your ticket." I had to go back to the event calendar to see where the concert was being held. I went to the church prepared to have to buy new tickets, if any were available. However, when I explained my problem at the door, the woman checking tickets just asked our names, and found them on her list of attendees. Apparently that's the normal ticket procedure for this festival.

The concert, part of the 2023 Quintessenz Organ Festival, was magnificent. The organist, Bartosz Jakubczak, planned the concert as a dialog between ancient and modern compositions; some of the latter had been commissioned especially for this project. For example, a 15th century dance composition was followed by a 20th century dance.

The first part of the concert was performed on a 17th century organ, the oldest in Vienna. This organ is in a small room behind the main altar, and is not normally open to view.




After this interesting musical dialog, we all went into the nave of the church for the second half of the concert. This was performed as a duet with a very talented classical saxophonist, Pawel Gusnar. The combination of organ and saxophone was captivating. They both performed in the organ loft, but for the encore, the saxophonist went to the front of the nave so the sound came from all sides. I was mesmerized.

Tomorrow we take on some palaces and art.

Travel_Nerd

Can't wait to read more. Perhaps maybe flag this as a trip report?

Trophywife007

Looks like you've made the most of your time there; I'm looking forward to more!

Moderator1

Added Trip Report flag and tagged for Austria

lavandula

Nice TR, following your steps!

Lavandula

bvlenci

I had checked "trip report" when I started this post. I had a few interruptions when writing it, and was advised to reload the page. The flag must have got lost in the reloading. This is something that could be remedied in the software. Trip reports are often long and the author may need to verify details, so I'm sure that often the composition of a trip report can't be completed in the time Fodor's allows for writing a post.

bvlenci

We considered that we would have to do the bulk of our sightseeing today. Check out was at noon on Sunday, meaning we wouldn't be able to have our postprandial nap, and might be tired in the afternoon. Also we wanted to go to the mass in the cathedral in the morning.

There were many museum and palaces to see, and we obviously couldn't see them all. We decided to focus on the Schönbrunn Castle and the Upper Belvedere Palace.

My husband wasn't keen on long museum visits, because he finds the slow pace and frequent stops very tiring. We have years of art museum visits under our belts, so we don't feel a big compulsion to revisit most of the periods and artists we're already familiar with.

I did want to see the Klimt collection at the Upper Belvedere, though. Marcello said we really shouldn't miss the Schönbrunn Castle, which he had seen on an earlier trip to Vienna. That gave us a plan for the day.

First we had to find breakfast. The hotel served breakfast for €19 a person, and we knew that we Italians wouldn't eat half of what was offered.

There was a pasticceria just in front of our hotel. We went there and ordered a cappuccino and croissant for each of us. The cappuccino was served in a small cup without handles, like a sakè cup. It was rather bitter, had no foam, and had strange brown flecks in it. The croissant was miniscule and a bit chewy. We hadn't checked the menu, so we were shocked to learn that this cost €17. In Italy, for much superior quality, we would have paid €7. Worst of all, we were still hungry.

We went next door to the Konditorei Oberlaa, where we had eaten the night before. There my husband ordered cappuccino and apple strudel, and I ordered latte macchiato and a sweet cheese curd strudel. The latte and cappuccino were large and excellent, and the strudels were delicious. This superb breakfast was €19. We crossed the pasticceria off our list. Of course, this was what we would have paid for the hotel breakfast, but it was much more to our taste than a full English and German breakfast with an indifferent coffee. We went to the Konditorei Oberlaa again for breakfast on Sunday morning.

After breakfast, we walked to Karlsplatz to get the metro to Schönbrunn Castle. On the way we passed the famous (and enormous) State Opera House. I took several photos for my daughter, who is a musicologist, specialist in Baroque opera. In the vicinity, even in the metro station, there are stars on the pavement bearing the names of opera composers and singers.


Wiener Staatsoper. This is the front. It extends for a great distance on the sides.

When we exited the metro, it wasn't very clear where the palace was. We followed the others through a large parking lot full of tour buses, and soon arrived at the palace gate.

I really have no interest in viewing imperial apartments (or other opulent residences). However, I did want to see the vast gardens and the park. These are free to enter.

bvlenci

[ I accidentally posted the above before I was finished. I tried to finish the post by editing it. Unfortunately, my edit ran over Fodor's time limit, so I had to make this new post instead.]

While we were at the Schönbrunn, there was a military band concert in front of the palace, "Treasures of Old Austria". (This is something else I found on the Vienna event calendar.)

The musicians seemed to be pensioners of the military band. They made up in brio any minor defects in style. I was especially taken by a very enthusiastic fife player. (I tried unsuccessfully to upload a short video clip. So at least I extracted a photo of him in action. You have to imagine him dancing in place.)




There was no shade, and no place to sit, but we watched the concert from the steps of the palace. After about half an hour, my husband said, "Now they'll play the Radetzky March, and that will be the finale." And that's exactly what happened!

By now it was lunchtime, so we took the metro back to Karlsplatz. From there we would take a tram to the Upper Belvedere, so we wanted to eat nearby. We explored a little, but it's an area of large public buildings, and we didn't see any restaurants.We went into a little park, and there we saw a little establishment. We asked if we could be seated and we're shown to a table.

We waited a long time for a menu, but the waitress seemed to be very busy, and we were in no hurry. When the waitress brought the menus, she said, "I have to warn you, the kitchen is very busy. There will be a wait." I asked if she could advise us if there was anything that might be ready to eat. She said there wasn't, that the kitchen was very slow today because there was a large group. I asked what kind of long wait, maybe half an hour? She grimaced and said she couldn't promise it would be only half an hour, she was very sorry. I said that we were also very sorry, but we would rather not take the chance. As we were leaving, I looked around, but saw no large groups, nor any tables reserved for a large group. It was very puzzling, and I didn't see why she couldn't have warned us before we waited 15 minutes for a menu.

We walked a little further into the park, and saw a little kiosk, Cafe Resselpark, with tables outside. They were serving food as well as drinks, so we tried again. This café was indeed very busy, and I saw a very large reserved table, so I was a little worried. However, service was very efficient, even after the large group arrived.

My husband had a Caesar salad with chicken. I ordered "goulash with "knödel". I was expecting little dumplings, but it was one very large ball of a mixture of potatoes, meat, flour, and maybe some bread crumbs. A bit heavy. The meat in the goulash was a little tough, and there was a fair amount of gristle. The sauce was very good, though.

Next we took a tram to the Belvedere. A lot of trams stop in the vicinity, and it took us a while to find the right stop.

The tram took us straight to the Upper Belvedere. Here again there was a very large and beautiful garden, but it lacked the unspoiled vistas of the Schönbrunn park. There were always modern buildings in view.




This time we entered the museum, and I headed straight for the Klimt collection, which was really a very interesting exhibit featuring Klimt and his milieu. At the moment there's a special feature of women artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It's not listed among the current exhibitions, so maybe it's permanent.

There were some Egon Schiele works in the collection, but I would have liked to have seen more of him.

There were many of Klimt's earlier works, including portraits and landscapes, which I was not familiar with. His Judith is on loan at the moment, but everything else I expected to see was there.

My husband, observing Adam and Eve, remarked that Adam looked a little disconsolate. I said, "He was very much in love with Eve, but then she cheated on him with the serpent." Thinking about the story in Genesis, it occurred to me that her relationship with the serpent really was a little ambiguous, and there's something phallic about serpents.

I was also very impressed with the vast Marble Hall, with frescoes by Italian artists. In this room the treaty which ended the Allied occupation of Austria was signed in 1955. They have on display the signatures and seals of the signatories.

(The Belvedere, and several of the other places we visited, as well as the organ concert, had discounts for seniors. We used to have those also in Italy, but, alas! they were eliminated shortly after we became seniors.)

After this we returned to the hotel for a much delayed afternoon nap. We ended up sleeping until 7. Then we went out to look for something to eat. We weren't very hungry, having had a big late lunch. We decided to return to our old standby, the Konditorei Oberlaa. Unfortunately, the kitchen had just closed (at 7:30). My husband asked if they had a fruit salad. There was none on the menu, but the waitress had a very nice mixture of fruit made up for him. I had an egg salad sandwich. Afterwards I went to a nearby gelato shop; I don't know if this is considered a good gelato shop. I can only say that it wouldn't be worthy of the name in Italy.

That was the end of our busy but enjoyable day. We sat in the Neuermarkt piazza for a while, and went off to bed.

bvlenci

I just realised I never finished this trip report.

Our last day in Vienna was Sunday. We decided to go to the 10:15 mass at Stephansdom, just a 5--minute walk from our hotel. Checkout was at noon, and I thought we would have time to pack afterwards, but just to be safe, we packed nearly everything beforehand. Good thing we did, because the mass lasted well over an hour.

We had our final breakfast at the Konditorei Oberlaa, and walked to the cathedral. I would have liked to hear the famous cathedral boys' choir, but their academic year hadn't started yet.

Since 2004, the cathedral also has a girls' choir, and beginning this past year both boys and girls attend the choir school together. A poster at the entrance welcomed boys and girls to try out for the choir.

The service was what is called a high mass, with incense and a sung liturgy. There was a good choir of adults, and the organist was pretty good. A woman next to us was following the mass on her phone, and it occurred to me that I probably could have followed a simultaneous translation using the Google Translate app on my phone. However, I didn't want to start experimenting during the service. Since the mass ran long, we just had time to get back to the hotel, pack the last few things, and do a final check to see if we had left anything behind. Our bags joined an assemblage of other suitcases behind the reception desk. We had lunch again at, big surprise: the Konditorei Oberlaa. My husband had roast salmon with a salad, and I had veal goulash with spätzle. Both meals were eexcellent. The goulash was better than the one I had in the park yesterday, and I liked the spätzle better than the giant dumpling of yesterday. (Since returning home, I tried making spätzle; it's a quick and easy variation on pasta, and for a first try, it was pretty good.)

Now we had over six hours to kill before our train departure. We decided to visit the Jewish Museum, which is near the Dom. This is very interesting and well presented. On the ground floor, the exhibits focused on the Jewish experience since 1945. There is a flourishing Jewish community in Vienna, with several Jewish schools and a number of synagogues. A fair number of people have returned to Austria from Israel. There are also recent immigrants from Russia, Hungary, and Georgia.The Jewish population is increasing. After the Nazi Anschluss, fully half of the Jewish population of Vienna left Austria. Many of them were to Israel. Some went to China, aided by a Chinese consular official who granted thousands of visas.

The upper floor focused on the Jewish population pre-1945. This is, of course, a tragic tale. The 20th-century genocide was not the first great persecution in Vienna; there were at least two other major persecutions, in the 15th an 17th centuries.

After the Nazi Anschluss in 1938, fully half of the Jewish population of Vienna left Austria. Many of them were to Israel. Some went to China, aided by a Chinese consular official who granted thousands of visas. (I had a friend in the US whose family had fled to Shanghai to escape the Nazis. I don't know if they were helped by this diplomat. She said they traveled there mostly by train through Russia. They stayed in Shanghai until the war ended, part of a sizeable Jewish community.)

There were photos of happy family occasions from the pre-war period: weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other celebrations. One particularly poignant item on display was a suitcase that someone had packed to take to the concentration camp. It had his name and address in Vienna on the side. Obviously he had never even opened the suitcase. Someone found it after the war and returned it to a survivor. The personal items in the museum are just a small token of all that was lost.

The Jewish Museum has two locations. At the second location, you can visit the ruins of the medieval synagogue, burned down during the 15th-century persecution. Unfortunately we didn't have time for that.

Our return train was scheduled for 7:30 PM. It was still a bit early, but my husband didn't want to go to another part of the city. We went to our hotel to retrieve our suitcase, and took the metro to the train station, from a stop just around the corner from the hotel.

Arriving at the station early, we had some time to kill. We found a place to sit (a rarity at this station) and I left my husband in charge of the suitcase while I went in search of a place to get a bite to eat, because there was no food service on the train. There wasn't a big variety of choices. We ended up getting mediocre hamburgers.

The private compartment on the way back was much better than the couchette on the way to Vienna. The beds were comfortable and already made up, although you had to call an attendant to lower them in the evening and raise them in the morning. I chose the top bunk, which was not very easy to get into with my limited agility. At least I knew I wouldn't have to get up in the night, which my husband couldn't guarantee.

There was a sink and mirror in the compartment. There was a welcome package with a snack, water, slippers, and a washcloth. The car was also very quiet; on the earlier trip, there were very loud conversations and clomping about in the corridor until well after midnight. I don't know what was going on, maybe a stag weekend? It was all in German, of which my understanding is very difficient. (I managed pretty well with signs and menus, though. )

We both slept well. After a certain hour, they don't announce the stations, and I didn't hear a thing all night.

In the morning, there was a nice breakfast. The night before, we were given menus from which we could pick six items. I chose yoghurt, coffee, milk, a roll, butter, and jam.

The train arrived right on time. On the way out, there was an announcement after about an hour that we were behind schedule by 40 minutes due to some Italian screw-up. However, we lost another 120 minutes inside Austria and nothing at all was said about that, not even an announcement of the delay. It's always convenient to blame those lackadaisical Italians!

bvlenci

Some general information

The public transportation system in Vienna is excellent and inexpensive. We got 48-hour tickets for 14 euros apiece. We didn't use them enough to save any money, but they were a great convenience. I had downloaded the app, WienMobil, but I found Google Maps more useful. The main problem with WeinMobil was that it didn't help find the stops.

While Google Maps was good for finding public transportation options, it was less useful for walking itineraries. It often lagged behind our actual location or had us in an altogether wrong place. I've found this problem in other cities as well, but it seemed worse in Vienna.

We took a taxi to our hotel, because we didn't want to wander around looking for it with a suitcase. However, traffic is intense, and on the way back, the metro was quicker. We also used the trams often. The next stop is displayed on a screen.

I highly recommend the Vienna events calendar:

https://events.wien.info/en/

David_49

Great info, thanks for sharing!

David_49

I found the Viennese wait staff to be quite sassy and unresponsive at the best of times. Lower your expectations when it comes to customer in Austria, as it's not what you may be used to, especially if coming from the states. It's not intentionally rude, more just how they are, extremely direct and lacking in any form of small-talk

bvlenci

We found the waiters and other service employees to be very cordial and helpful, with the exception of one who was cordial but not helpful. However, we don't expect small talk with restaurant staff.