Hola Sevilla!: Vienna

VIENNA
So it was a five hour bus ride to Vienna and the ride couldn't have been more beautiful. From going in and out of snow to seeing the beautiful hillsides of the surrounding cities and to enjoying our movie selections we had on our bus we finally arrived in Vienna later on the 8th. When we first got there we figured out how to get to our Wombat hostel and got dinner at this nearby pizza place that our hostel suggested! That night we planned out the first day we would have in Vienna.

The first day in Vienna we spent walking around the city streets for a bit. However due to the Easter holiday there were still a lot of stores that weren't open. When we made it to the center we took a Ring Tram around the city center so it showed us what spots to hit on our own walking tour. It was definitely helpful because we picked and choose which ones we wanted to hit and wanted to skip. On our walk we hit a couple of Monument for Mozart which had a neat flower design in the shape of a g cleft. It was really cool! Mozart was a really big deal in Vienna as we explored the city we could really tell how much influence music had on the city. One of our next big stops was Parliament building! It was beautiful as well. As we continued to walk we bumped into an Easter market and I got a apple pretzel there. It was decent not the best pretzel I had but good hah. As we kept walking we made our way to St. Stephen's Church which was a gorgeous Church. The windows had so many different colors to them and the church itself had so much to offer it had a couple of different tours that were available. We didn't wind up doing any but we did take a ton of pictures! After leaving the church we made our way to the oldest coffee house in Vienna (it's actually said to be older than the city of Vienna itself!) It was called Leopold Hawelka. I got a cappucino and shared a piece of chocolate cake with Jo:) It was really good. Next we explored the park along the river. We actually met two other St. John's students in this park, it was cool! We then made our way to the Ferris wheel which had been displayed in some movies and is actually known as one of the most visited places in Vienna. Kind of like a landmark of Vienna! Our walk to get there was super extensive but we got to see some neat art and graphics on the way. After the theme park we decided to head back to the hostel to grab some dinner then chill. This night we went to the bar in the basement of our hostel which was actually a lot of fun. We got some drinks and met some people from America and Switzerland we chilled with them for the night and got free shots as well when the bartenders called on us too! It was a really fun night.

The following morning in Vienna we got breakfast at our hostel then headed out to Naschmarket which is a giant market in Vienna. It was really cool they had a lot of food stands and stands where you could purchase cute scarves, dresses, and shirts. After walking through the market we also wanted to hit Belvedere gardens! On our way there we passed neat art sculptures like the "fallen angel" and also a WWII memorial fountain and statue. After exploring through the gardens our last event of the long day was to go to Mozarts actual grave! After walking and walking and walking what literally felt like hours we finally made it to his grave. It's actually really neat to say I've been to Mozart's grave. We heard the memorial for Mozart was beautiful but the grave I felt was a different kind of cool. After seeing this we took the metro back to the market. got a falafa and i got some guacomole with bread and we sat on the road eating! After our long day in the sun and walking around we headed back to the hostel and took a long nap. After our nap Bren, Jordan and I went on a walk to the city center for some dessert and Amanda got food at a nearby Chinese food place.

The last morning in Vienna we went to the other garden in Vienna called Bundesgarten Schonbrunn. We didn't have too much time to explore this garden but it was cool to just see how big it was. The amount of land used for this garden reminded me slightly of Versailles in Paris but nothing compared to that golden architecture we saw then. After the garden we went back to the hostel to quickly grab our bags then we headed to the plane!

Look at my next blog for pictures about Barcelona!! OUR last stop along spring break! xox, kimm