Vienna!

Okay folks, let's be clear about this from the start: I LOVE VIENNA.

And I'm going to spend this entire post waxing poetic about it, so if descriptions of Austria don't float your boat, feel free to check back once we reach Italy.

But for those of you who are sticking around, here's the deal: if you've ever dreamed of wandering down the picturesque cobblestones streets of an "old European" city, book tickets now. Vienna is gorgeous: gleaming white neo-Baroque facades marching along pedestrian-only boulevards; statues and fountains and men dressed as Mozart at every intersection; towering church spires and emperor's palaces and the best opera house in the world, all within a ten-minuite stroll; cafe umbrellas everywhere, ice-cream topped espresso drinks, and the desserts - oh God, the desserts! - rich and creamy and completely devoid of nutritional value. We could have spent our entire stay aimlessly wandering the picture-perfect streets of the first district.

But there were museums to peruse and sights to see as well! In keeping with our "topping things" theme, we scaled the 357 stairs to the heights of St. Stephen's spiky gothic tower, where we were granted a stunning view of the city, spiraling outwards around the base of the iconic cathedral. From there, on to the Hofburg - the Versailles of Austria - a decadent palace with a truly astonishing amount of gilded flatware and surprisingly moving exhibit on the tragic life of Empress Sisi. The Kunsthistorisches Museum followed, and it was packed with late-Renaissance-era masterpieces, including a delightfully dark reinterpretation of David by personal favorite Caravaggio.

Slightly farther off the beaten track, we visited the Kunst Haus Wien, a museum space designed by and dedicated to Hundertwasser, built with no straight lines and multiple tree tenants. (If you don't know who he is, use Google. A bit of a dreamer, perhaps, but with fascinating ideas and quotable phrases to spare.) And the Haus der Musik had super-modern interactive displays on the science of sound, which I barely understood but Eliza truly loved.

It only got prettier as the sun went down. We trekked out to the west of the city one night to find a genuine "wine tavern" - and after an epic fail on my part, did eventually stumble across one that was open... There, we whiled away the night in a softly-lit garden courtyard, sipping heuriger, a deliciously bright, crisp wine made in-house. Another night was spent at the Prater, a decent theme park with a carnival-like atmosphere and a famous ferris wheel that was far too expensive to bother riding. We chose to ascend elsewhere instead, on a 115m tall tower with swings, which gently spun us around as it lifted us up over the city. We rode at dusk, and quiet descended as we rose above the neon lights, no sound but the wind as we whirled softly above Vienna.

I'll stop myself before this turns into the overly-detailed play-by-play travelogue that we had hoped to avoid. But suffice it to say that Vienna has all of the artistic treasures, cultural wonders, and old-city charm that we dreamed of when the idea for this trip first arose. I hear that Salzburg and Innsbruck are just as incredible, and a return-trip to Austria has been firmly etched onto our to-do list. Consider adding it to yours!

Until next time--