Vienna
Anthony Bourdain filmed 2 seasons of The Cook’s Tour and was 7 seasons into “No Reservations” before he made it to Vienna. He admitted to avoiding it due to not being a fan of pastry and sweets (and even makes a disparaging comment about pastry chefs in general). Once he finally arrived, in early December of 2009, he loved it. He even liked the sachertorte. Vienna kept a confident personality: In 1900 it was the cosmopolitan city central to the identity of the massive Austro-Hungarian empire, within a year of the end of the 1st World War, the empire had collapsed to the small country at the edge of Europe. Those centuries of acquiring countries and cultures left their mark – Vienna is definitely a food city.
The Viennese quintessential food is schnitzel – the origin of chicken-fried steak. Meat that is pounded thin, breaded and fried. Veal is the standard, but almost any meat can be made into a schnitzel, and they cover the specials boards of countless restaurants.
These are especially prevalent in the restaurants and café’s that line the Naschmarkt – a four block long pedestrian area lined by food stalls, candies, butcher shops, coffee bars and the aforementioned restaurants. As you walk along, you are offered olives, meat, cheese and candies by the purveyors.
The local wine is mainly a golden Gruner Veltliner – a crisp white like a dry Riesling, with accents of unripe pear and apple, sometimes found as a “strum” – a fresh wine that has not fully aged, and typically a little lower in alcohol content (about 9%). Vineyards are found in and around the city, so a lot of the wine is truly local and inexpensive. A 250ml glass is about 5E in most bars and restaurants. Unfortunately, we are a little early for the ice wine (which is made after frost has frozen the grapes and made them very sweet).
Since one must do something in between eating and drinking, one great option is wandering around Schonnbrunn Palace and gardens.
It is only 5 stops from the center of the city along the U4 line of metro. You can go onto the grounds for free, and the paths are popular with joggers. Touring the palace, going up to the lookout area of the Gloriette (the extremely large gazebo on the hill above the palace),
the orangery and the maze costs 29E per person (discounts available with the City Card and for seniors). There is a reason this is one of the main tourist attractions in Europe, and the biggest in Austria. We were lucky that the weather was amazing – mid 70’s and clear. We seemed to be there with all the other tourists in Vienna and likely 10% of the locals, so even though it was “off season” we had a 90- minute wait to enter the palace, which gave us plenty of time to wander the grounds. I could have done an entire post about the palace.
Our second full day was not as “fine”, cloudy with intermittent showers, meant it was more of a hop-on-hop-off day and museums. I dragged John into the Hofburg Palace– the giant palace of the Habsburgs (rumored to have over 6000 rooms) that has been divided into four museums. We wandered through the Imperial Treasury portion (the downside – they charge extra for the audioguide). A country that eventually covered almost half of Europe (often acquiring lands by marriage, something they were quite proud of) acquired an amazing amount of wealth.
The Habsburgs invested in intricate reliquaries and religious artifacts (just in the displays, they must have had enough “true splinters of the cross” to create a cross fifty feet high and 8 feet wide).
Unfortunately, in the city of Mozart and Strauss, not much live music. We will keep looking.
On to Salzburg!
PS: I will also make a comment about finding public bathrooms in Europe (not just Vienna) – almost all “public” restrooms cost between 50c- 1E, and the most consistent place to find one is in the subway. They often require you to use a machine to access the restroom (which is more complicated than it looks)-
put your money into the machine, get a little piece of paper with a scan code, scan it, and the door slides open. One even automatically opened the door to the stall – leaving all other stalls locked. Once you’ve paid for a museum, the toilet is generally included in the admission fee, and larger restaurants almost always have a WC. Fast food establishments generally charge for theirs.
Love it!