Falling in love with Vienna

“Vienna is a handsome, lively city, and pleases me exceedingly”

Frederic Chopin

It’s an early flight from Brum – which means an airport breakfast and the obligatory glass of bubbles. Just 2 hours and 20 minutes later we are landing in Austria for the second time.

You can read more about our 2014 trip to Salzburg here!

Getting our bearings

It doesn’t take long for our suitcase to arrive on the luggage belt. We’re soon emerging out of the airport and on the hunt for the airport bus that will whisk us into the city. As luck would have it the VAL2 to Morinplatz stops rights outside the terminal. We’ve just missed the half hourly bus though so it’s an impatient and fidgety wait until the next one arrives. Finally on our bus, it takes just 22 minutes to get into Vienna’s first district. We do our usual juggling with online maps to work out which way to walk once we’ve disembarked, but it turns out that our apartment is only a couple of minutes walk from the transport hub on Morinplatz and Schwedenplatz.

As is commonplace with apartment buildings, the entrance is discreet. Which means that we walk past it a couple of times before deciding that we must be in the right place. I send a Whatsapp message to our AirBnB host and he appears from inside the building. We’re up on the third floor. There is a lift but it’s barely big enough to hold three fully-sized adults, a large suitcase, a small wheelie case and Mr Fletche’s camera bag. This leads to a slightly awkward but thankfully short ascent. Dominik, it turns out, knows all about Birmingham and Brummies. This knowledge appears to have been gleaned from Peaky Blinders. I assure him that we do not carry razor blades stitched into our bobble hats.

Home sweet home

Our one-bedroomed apartment is perfect for our needs. It’s handy for public transport and close to all of the First District’s attractions. There’s a Spar a couple of minute’s walk away, however Dominik has advised us that many shops in Vienna don’t trade on a Sunday so we’re left with the minimal supplies in our kitchen until the following morning. We’re reassured that bars and restaurants will still be open though so we’re unlikely to starve. We bid Dominik Auf Wiedersehen before heading out to check out the city.

Fancy an Airbnb stay? If you’re a first time booker, you can get money off your first trip here!

A first glimpse of Christmas in Vienna

We amble around the city with no particular place in mind. It’s mid-afternoon and a little grey weather-wise which means that the festive lights overhead are beginning to twinkle. We come across our first Christmas market, surrounding the foot of St Stephen’s Cathedral. In a city famous for it’s Christmas markets, this is not the last we’ll see. We wander along Graben admiring the giant teardrop shaped illuminations. The architecture in Vienna is stunning, representing a whole mixture of periods and styles. The festive lights are the perfect excuse to remember to look up and take in the elegant and elaborate buildings.

We turn onto Kohlmarkt, lined with high-end stores such as Dior, Chanel and Tiffany. The intricate strands of twinkling lights pull our eyes upwards. Straight ahead is the impressive domed facade of Michaelertor, the gateway to the Hofburg Palace, the Habsburgs’ principal Winter Residence. There’s another small Christmas market on Michaelerplatz, tastefully adorned in white and ivory, blending beautifully with the palace complex behind. No tackiness or clashing colours here. Even the horses pulling the tourist carriages seem to be white or cream – or at a push, pale grey – here.

Rolling with the pun(s)ches

We pass through the Michaelertor, stopping momentarily to admire the beautiful interior of the dome. For a gateway, this is pretty impressive. We emerge at the courtyard and pass the Kaiser Franz statue at Innehof Square before heading into through to Neue Berg and Heldenplatz (Heroes Square). This is where Adolf Hitler famously spoke to the Austrian masses in 1938 and declared the annexation of Austria into Nazi Germany. We cross the Ringstraße and decide that the Christmas Village at Maria-Theresien-Platz will be the perfect place to devour a (very) late lunch and a warming punsch. Lunch is goulash, served in a bread bowl. This takes some creative problem-solving in how to eat without puncturing the outer bread layer and thus causing goulash leakage. 

My weihnachtspunsch is a pretty potent amaretto concoction. All surrounded by some impressive imperial buildings in Vienna’s Museumquartier and under the watchful gaze of Maria Theresia herself. We learn a lot about this lady over the next 24 hours, not least that she was the only female ruler of the House of Habsburg, gave birth to 16 children (one of her daughters being a certain Marie-Antoinette), paved the way for compulsory education for all and reformed the military and judicial systems. She clearly liked to keep herself busy.

We declare this our favourite market so far.

Fuelled by punsch, we wind our way along Ringstraße. We come across an impressive looking building which I declare looks a bit like “an opera house”. Yes, we have stumbled upon Vienna State Opera House. It’s a truly beautiful building and I can’t wait to see inside the following evening. There are a plethora of men dressed like Mozart trying to sell us performance tickets. We politely decline. We follow Kärtner Strasse all the way from the Opera House. It’s a beautiful pedestrianised street with fashion chains and department stores nestling shoulder to shoulder with huge souvenir shops, elegant cafes and the flagship Swarovski store. Once again, the buildings are beautifully wrapped for Christmas.

Exploring Vienna by night, market by market

We pop back to our apartment to put on some more layers before heading out in search of more Christmas markets. This time we’re off to the big one, the Christkindlmarkt at Rathausplatz. Held in front of the neo-Gothic City Hall, this is Vienna’s largest festive market. There’s over 150 stalls, a small fairground, an ice rink and hundreds upon hundreds of fairy lights festooning the park’s trees and the ginormous Christmas tree centrepiece. Unsurprisingly for a weekend evening, it’s very busy (did we learn nothing from last week’s trip to London’s Winter Wonderland?) so we leave Rathausplatz behind in search of a slightly less manic market.

We head for Freyung – but slightly deviate from our path for a beer in Zattl. The Old Viennese Christmas Market on Freyung is a little more traditional but we fear we’ve left it a little late for food and drink as some of the stalls are starting to close. It’s like Bruges all over again. The Advent Market at Am Hof however is still doing a roaring trade so we split up to see what wares we can bring back to share.

Mr Fletche goes for the fried potatoes, sauerkraut and bacon combo. Remaining on a fried potato theme, I opt for the garlic-oil covered langos. Perfect festive market food. The drinks stalls are a notch up from the other markets too with more luxurious mulled alcohol on offer. As regular readers of A Brummie Home and Abroad will know, I’m a huge fan of the Aperol Spritz so I give this winter warmer version a big thumbs-up. This is now my favourite market so far.

Sated in the food and drink department, we’re now starting to flag. We wind our way back to our apartment. After all, we have a date with Spar in the morning to pick up supplies.

For the next part of our Vienna adventures, click here!