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First Words. I’m starting to think that it is in the stars for me to make it an annual tradition to visit the Christmas markets in Austria. Last year I hit Salzburg with a bunch of friends, so this year its sister city, Vienna, has the pleasure of my company. 🙂
| Dates | Out of Heathrow Friday night, 9 December In to Heathrow Monday morning, 12 December |
| Airline | Austrian Airlines |
| Why go? | The Food, The Christmas Markets, The Beautiful Buildings and The Lovely Music. |
| Weather | Sometimes overcast but mostly clear, cool and dry. Unfortunately no snow though we definitely wishing for it. About 1-2 degrees celcius. |
| The experience | Vienna is a very beautiful city. It is a very walkable but the metro and trams are convenient and efficient (if you can work out where you’re going) and great for those who can’t really cope with the cold at this time of year. |
| My brother had prepared a list before we left of the things and places he would like to see and visit and interestingly the list was mainly composed of Christmas markets and eating! Vienna, after all, has that cliched reputation for fine coffee houses, chocolate cakes, and monumental buildings. Okay so it wasn’t all eating and Christmas markets as we did manage to visit a few cultural type places such as climbing the 300+ steps up the Stephansdom (St Stephen’s Cathedral), visiting Schonbrunn Palace and Belvedere Palace, and visiting the Museum Quartier (which had been all themed up for Christmas with the ice palace, ice rink for kiddies, ice curling and hill climbing (remote control car racing up a snow covered hill). But unfortunately there was no Vienna Boy’s Choir or dancing horses for us this weekend. | |
| The Christmas Markets were magical – there is just something about the cute little wooden stalls and the fragrances of mulled wine and roasting chestnuts that really drew us in. I’m not sure how many Christmas Markets there were in total but we made a fair effort to visit most of the major ones including those hosted at Rathausplatz (in front of the City Hall), Schonbrunn Castle, Spittelberg, Belvedere Palace, Reisenrad (near Prater) and Altweiner just to name a few! | |
| I would say the biggest and most interesting one was the Christmas Market at Rathausplatz with The Schonbrunn Castle markets coming a close second. All offer pretty much the same sorts of stalls with only Spittelberg seeming to differ slightly with more of a focus on craft type goods rather than pure Christmas goods of wooden toys, candles, baubles, etc. If you go, the atmosphere during the night seems that much more magical with the twinkling of the christmas lights and the merry atmosphere (as by then most people had down a fair amount of mulled wine!). | |
| And so, to The Food. I think I love Austrian food – and you could tell as by the time I got back to London I didn’t think I’d ever have to eat again! There is a lot of meat in the Austrian diet, though I’m sure there were plenty of decent vegan places to eat at if you looked hard enough. I was determined to try as much Austrian food as possible from the stereoptypical schnitzel and the tapelspitz (boiled beef) to desserts such as apple strudel and the sacher torte. | |
| A special mention has to go to Figlmüller host to our first and last major meals in Vienna (yes – its that good!) Born in 1905, this restaurant has been serving the Figlmüller Schnitzel for over 100 years. The fillets of meat are so thinly sliced that even for these giant pieces of schnitzel that only 30 seconds of frying is required. If you go, you must order the gorgeous potato salad to accompany it. Dressed with styrian pumpkin-seed oil it is a great companion to the schnitzel. There are now two restaurants but the best one to go to for the traditional feel is the original one just next to the St.Stephens Cathedral. Oh – you are probably well advised to book to avoid disappointment but if you are on your own or a couple you could probably ask to squeeze on to a table. | |
| Vienna is heaven for dessert lovers with plenty of cafes and cake shops to choose from. The ones that are often marked in tourist books are Café Diglas for its apple strudel (and where I had this ball of marzipan or something!) and for the sacher torte the major players are Café Demel and Hotel Sacher where there is some sort of history between these two places about who had the original recipe. With all the eating we were doing we only managed to try a slice at Hotel Sacher though we did visit Cafe Demel which was absolutely heaving with people. Hotel Sacher’s sacher torte was very very very rich and the cream served with it was definitely required to cut through the richness. I guess I’ll have to try Café Demel’s sacher torte next time I’m in town. | |
| Highlights | As described above. |
| Lowlights | Hitting mainly tourist type spots and not getting to eat my pork knuckle at Schweizerhaus) |
| Final words | A nice Christmas weekend break. |
More photos here.