I hope you excuse my slight change of Midge Ure’s words. I loved Ultravox so have been thinking about this song all day and as a result it is about to make a comeback on my playlist. We are in the captivating Vienna. ‘Twas a bit of a journey to get here that included of course the need to learn a new “metro” system but we did. Our hotel is very close to one of the UBahn stations which is fantastic and thankfully most of the stations have had escalators. Poor Steve is like an unpaid Sherpa lugging the bags up and down stairs and into and out of trains. The best station we have been through (in my opinion) was in the little town of Tuun there were ramps up and down at each platform and they were bloody tremendous! There are so many cyclists in each of the places we have been that I am surprised that there aren’t more ramps, but perhaps there are and we just haven’t found them.

Last night after checking in we decided to head into town (two trains) and get the lay of the land. The great benefit of doing this close to sunset is that the photos are pretty awesome.

The beautiful St. Stephan’s Cathedral was still open and when we entered I was taken aback – it is so dark and gothic. Did you know it was the national emblem of Austria 🇦🇹, I did not. Also that Saint Stephan is the patron saint for headaches and horses …. We will be going back there to visit the Bell Tower apparently we have 343 steps coming our way as well as catacombs and the treasury. Here are the shots we took last night.

After taking these pics we decided to look for a schnitty of course, to see how they compared to a club schnitty night at home.

We gave this place a miss ( why are you not surprised ) the menu was weird and they had included a traditional dish of grilled Australian grasshoppers – yep I could not make that up ! We found a great place called Bier & Bierli which did the trick a local brew and a schnitzel the size of Tassie 😀.

Today we did heaps of walking starting with and it was hot, mid 30’s. we started our day at the Hofburg Vienna. The Hofburg was the palace in Vienna until 1918, it was were the Emperors drew up reforms etc., it was the political centre of Austria. Today it still has a significant role with the Federal President for Austria housed here as well as the Ministry and Secretary of State. Naturally it physically is in the centre of town and is really easy to get to. Our ticket included entrance into the Silver Collection, the Imperial Apartments and the Sisi Museum (I needed my hanky here).

Once I recovered from my disappointment of arriving by foot and not horse and cart we started with the silver room. The silver was nice but the crockery was sensational….

This last piece would go really nicely with my Christmas platter at home, but unfortunately everything was behind lock and key. There are over 7000 items on display and they range back from the fifteenth century to 1918 when the Habsburg monarchy ended.

We then headed to the Sisi Museum and had a great audio guide to hear about this complex and sad life. Unfortunately no photos again.. but what I can tell you is that Elisabeth was born into a royal Bavarian family and was nicknamed Sisi. She, her sister Helene and her mum travelled to Vienna, as her sister was to marry her cousin the Emperor Franz Joseph I. When Franz laid eyes on 15 year old Sisi and spent some time with her he decided that he would like to marry her instead. Sisi was not unhappy with this arrangement except for one small fact that Franz was Emporer and she was unsure of how she would cope with the life she was expected from her as she was naturally shy.

She appears to have had a sad life losing two children (one as a child and one through suicide) and then being murdered by an Italian anarchist at the age of 60. She remained stunningly beautiful and was deeply loved by Franz, but she suffered from depression which sounded quite debilitating for most of her adult life. She refused to undertake the duties of Empress becoming almost completely reclusive, travelled frequently and constantly exercised to stay 50 kgs, she was 172 cms.

I understand that a number of movies have been made about Sisi, which the Museum tells me are more fiction than fact, as she was quite unpopular with the people up until the day she died, and this is certainly not how she is portrayed by Hollywood, but I will be checking them out on my return home.

Following this Museum we then went to the Imperial apartments, again no photos but they are worth a look.

Then into St Peter’s , I do love a good Church. The first church at this site is believed to have been established around 800 AD, the building for this current church started in 1701 and was completed in 1733. It was based on St. Peter’s Basilica, and you can see the similarities.

And then onto St. Augustine’s where I was lucky enough to walk amongst the masterpieces of Monet, Picasso and Delvaux ( just to name a few ) for an hour or so which was not long enough and then walk through some of the rooms of the Albertina Palace. A wonderful way to finish a day in Vienna, soon to be followed by a cleansing ale and maybe another schnitzel 🇦🇹.