Finally arrived in Wien!

 WIEN- Central Cafe 

"A place where time and space are consumed but only coffee is on the bill" Freud used to drink here!"

MOZART - of course

Every statue has a pigeon! 

We arrived in Vienna about 6 pm Wednesday July 31st. We had prearranged transfers from the airport to the hotel as we knew we would be tired. The hotel looked great and once we checked in the women informed us we were in the next hotel up the street. Up a few stairs .... Well, two flights of stairs later we arrived to the Annex. Seemed OK - room was small but very clean, bright and modern. I immediately had a shower and Garth tried to get on the WiFi. No such luck. We had read a few reviews on trip adviser about the internet problems and each time someone complained the manager of the hotel responded by saying thank you the situation has been fixed. Well, not so much. The receptionist suggested to Garth that we move to the first floor where the signal was stronger - yes, it is a strong signal but it is a smoking floor and anyone who knows us knows we cannot live in a smoking environment without smoking ourselves!! That was not an option for us so we moved back down to the main building which I think it much nicer and smoke free. We got settled and decided to go for a walk.

Ahh, Vienna by night! We walked in the pouring rain in circles for 3 + hours. We saw parts of District One that probably most locals have not been too. I started looking for landmarks, stores, Police?? At one point we saw a statue of a man working at the side of a building......I said to Garth OK if we see him again we have definitely gone way too far. Finally, three hours after going for our short little walk we arrived back at the hotel soaking wet, hungry and exhausted. We decided that tomorrow we would take the GPS!

We fell asleep instantly.

Here is the man at the side of the building, of course we saw him again.  But now we know to turn around 180 degrees and head back into the city!!

Thursday July 31st, even though we were tired our body clocks were still out of whack so we were up pretty early. The weather called for rain so off we went with our umbrellas. We walked up to the Naschmarkt and had a wiener schnitzel mit kar...-potato salad of sorts. The schnitzel was great - Garth had some kind of goulash! So, with some fuel in the tanks and some sleep we walked to the huge cathedral in the centre, St Stephan's. Vienna is like a series of mazes and small windy streets. It is very clean and the locals very nice. Everyone smokes, the women are experts at walking in high heels on cobblestone  and they drink a lot of  coffee in very fancy cafes......they must work at some point though cause things are the same price here as at home, although here you are paying in Euros.
We came back to the hotel and had an afternoon nap! We went back out later - again in the rain - but this time we walked the outer ring of the city. We found kebabs and pizza, did some people watching and then back to sleep.

In the 4th century they had murals and heated floors. Wish they could get a grip on air conditioning in this century!

Beautiful architecture 

St. Stephans

St Stephans inside

These two pictures are cakes in a store window - pretty amazing!

Beach Day Cake

This morning we felt somewhat normal in terms of times and sleep! We walked up to the tourist office to get some info and stopped at the Famous Hotel Sacher  - home of the world famous sacher torte. They have been making it since 1832 so they are getting something right! It was pretty good.

 From here we walked to the Opera House - they are closed for performances July and August but open for tours. It was stinking hot in there, no wonder it is closed! Three thousand people in there with no air -- there would be a riot! Anyhow, it was interesting and beautiful!

Killing time while waiting for the tour!

Once Garth had his picture taken lots of other men also went up!

Opera House Interior

View from the orchestra pit

Part of the original entrance from 1869.

Outdoor balcony at Opera House

We had good intentions of going to the other famous church but we were thirsty so we stopped for a coke, then just wandered.  We have arranged for a two hour walking tour starting at 10 am tomorrow so we need to get up and at em! Hopefully the rain that is predicted will stay away tomorrow as it did today.