Austria Vacation Log: Day 15, The Enjoyment of Wien

In many ways, yesterday was a low point.I feel like I was overwhelmed with the amount of stuff that I wanted to see in Vienna.On Day 15, I admitted I wouldn’t see half of it – and it was more important to see some of it well.

We got a late start and wandered around the city.Dorinna spent some time in Frey Willie, a high-class jewelry store, while I poked my head into every bookstore in town.We thought to see St. Stephensdom, but they were setting it up for a wedding, and tourism was shutting down in there.

So we meandered our way over to the Kunsthistorishes Museum – one of the most important art museums in the world. We got our audio guides and started to explore. In keeping with my mindset for the day, we didn’t even try to see the whole museum. The German/Dutch/Flemish half was enough. We saw that half in great detail, only flying through the Italian/French section to visit some familiar names. We stopped in mid-visit for a visit to what turned out to be both a delicious and beautiful café. We had great food and a great desert.

After the museum, we went on a quest for a grocery story to buy Nutella for Maria. We failed, but found a few pleasantly uncrowded souvenir shops off the main drag, which allowed us to finish our shopping. We vowed that our next trip will be postcards-only.

The evening adventure started off on the subway. We took the U4 to its end, and then found a bus, and took that what seemed like a very long way up one big hill. We got off at Kahlenberg. After visiting the only dirty restroom in Austria, we climbed up onto a terrace to get a view down to the city below. Grey clouds covered the sky, and it was fairly late. Fairly gloomy actually, and we wondering if we had enough daylight left. We were looking for a trail back down to the city. We found it, but it went on and off a road, and we soon missed one of the turn-offs, and most of our walk was on the Klenberger Strauße, down into the center of Nußdorf. Along the way we passed lots of vineyards- Vienna is the only world capital with vineyards within the city limits. At one point an Austrian car pulled up to ask me for directions. I managed to apologize in German: “Est tut mir Leid. Wir sind amerikanishen Touristen.“

We made it down to the cute little hamlet of Nußdorf, and after a short search, found the Heurige recommended in our guide book. We waited in the long line at the food counter, and ordered too much. We went outside and found a table, and started drinking wine. And drinking more wine. Rain started, and we talked about going inside, but a retractable canopy opened over our heads. It leaked over our table as the drizzle turned into a downpour, but we huddled against the building and stayed dry. I think we had four glasses of wine apiece by the time the rain stopped and we left. Not bad for €8. It wasn’t the best wine, but it went down smooth and after the first glass we liked it well enough.