The gardens of Vienna

August 17

We arrived in Vienna in the afternoon on Friday August 17. Unfortunately we were only spending the one night in the Austrian capital, because we liked what we saw on our stroll around the city that afternoon.

After asking the guy at reception at the A&O Wien Hostel where to find places to eat and where to find things to see during our one night there. We were off walking down a main road leading us to Vienna's old town. We finally came to exactly that, but what we felt were luxuriously ginormous versions of an old town. We walked past two beautiful twin buildings that make up Vienna's Natural History Museum and an art gallery. Then we came to the Imperial Palace, where we decided to sit on the grass with a few other people to take in the beautiful architectural surroundings.

Continuing on from the Imperial Palace we came to Volkren Park, a park full of rose gardens; where you can find roses of all sorts of different colours, with the beautiful summer rose scent.

Volkren Park then lead J and I out to stand infront of Vienna's Parliament House. A magnificent white structure, needless to say J was impressed with the look of the building.

After a fairly long walk, we needed to find the nearest McDonalds to use their bathroom, funnily enough McDonalds are very handy whilst travelling in Europe, for one. to use their toilets and two. wifi. Except we walked into this McDonalds and we needed a pin code to get into their toilets (as J and I didn't actually eat there, we hadn't obtained a pin). Lucky there was a lady needing to use the bathroom at the same time as us, (had to share this story because I've never come across that with any McDonalds over here before).

Walking back towards the Parliament House we came across stampede of people riding bicycles. In awe of how many people were joined in this protest or group(we weren't sure which), because Vienna is similar to most European countries and have bike paths throughout the city - though we didn't come across too many that day (probably because they were part of this group).

Waltzing back up the main road where we came from, past many little second-hand shops, we came to Model, a very hipster looking bar where I tried a delicious lemon flavoured mineral water, an Austrian brand of course, so there's no way I'd be able to get it back home. After our quick refresher, we found a restaurant tucked away up an alley way full of people (always a good sign of travelling). J and I both ate delicious home-made schnitzels (his pork, mine chicken of course) and I drank an orange version of the mineral water I had, had at the previous bar. Followed by chocolate crepes for desert; it was an awesome meal.

Then we strolled home, wishing we could've picnicked the next day in one of the many gardens of Vienna.

Volkren Garden