Austria? More like Awe-stria!!!

If Vienna, Austria is not on your list of places to go, I would highly recommend changing that. From the moment I got off the plane to take off four days later, I was totally in love with city. It was so much more than I expected, and I had high expectations.

I boarded the plane early Wednesday morning to start my adventure. Once I got there, I found my way to central Vienna and used the subway system to get to my hostel. The Sound of Music was very accurate about the number of hills there are. No matter where you go, expect to walk up at least three hills, and you never seem to go down hill. You may think I'm just being hill areas, but this is no joking matter. To get to my hostel I had to walk up a super fun hill, but at the top there was this beautiful church, that just came out of nowhere.

I swear at the top of every hill there was a church.

After I dropped my stuff off at the hostel, I headed out to visit Schönbrunn Palace. This was the former summer palace of the royal family of Austria. Both the inside and outside of the palace are too beautiful for words. There is a reason it means "Beautiful Spring". After exploring the inside, I walked around back to the gardens, which turned out to be one of my favorite things I saw during my trip. When looking away from the palace you first see the Neptune fountain at the base of this hill and at the top is the Gloriette.

Top: Front of Schönbrunn Palace
Middle: Back of Schönbrunn Palace with a View of Austria
Bottom: View of the Gardens with the Neptune Fountain and Gloriette

Day two was probably my favorite day! I went to the Upper and Lower Bel-and the Beast-vedere Palaces. These are two art museums. I spent six hours just looking at art. This place is really worth the Monet, and I got a student discount! Some of the art was so beautiful it felt like it couldn't be real, as if it was a pigment of my imagination. For lunch I went to a place around the corner and got typical Viennese food, schnitzel and beer!

I was a little chicken to go for the traditional Weiner schnitzel but I beerly don't regret it.

After my time at the Belvedere I went over to the Prater, an amusement park. I went on the famous Ferris wheel. And even though I was scared I had a wheelly good time. The panoramic view of the city was absolutely breathtaking. After the Prater, I went over the museum district and found a little cafe to have a quick bite to eat before going to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, another art museum! In the two and a half hours I was there, I only got to see the first floor, with the ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Roman art. I would have gone to the upper floors if the museum didn't close, and this unfortunately wasn't Night at the Museum.

Left: View from the Upper Belvedere to Lower Belvedere
Top Right: View from the Prater Ferris Wheel
Bottom Right: Kunsthistorisches Museum with the statue of Maria Theresa

For day three I started by visiting the Hofburg Palace with the Imperial Apartments and Silver Collection. Hofburg Palace was the winter palace for the royal family.

The Hofburg Palace Courtyard

After viewing the museum, I actually ate at the little cafe that you can see at the front of the picture above. I ended up finding a new favorite dessert! It's called Creme Schnitte or vanilla slice.

My sweet dreams will be, forever, about eating this

After lunch, I walked over to the famous cathedral, St. Stephen's. The funniest thing to me was having this amazing piece of Medieval Ages Gothic architecture and right next to it was a McDonald's. It was absolutely stunning both inside and out. After walking around Stephansplatz for a while, I ended up making my way to the Naturhistorisches Museum, which is right across from the Kunsthistorisches Museum. This museum has one of the largest collection of minerals and gems in the world. And the largest and oldest meteorite collection in the world. This museum really rocked my world.

Day four was ZOO DAY!!!! I made my way back over to Schönbrunn Palace Gardens to the zoo. I got to see so many animals!!! I got to see rhinos, elephants, pandas, bats, lots of birds, monkeys, polar bears, reindeer (yes Katie, I said hi to Sven), and goats!

Here are some koala-ty photos from my time at the zoo. I have many otter photos that you can see in the link below.

After the zoo, I ended up walking around Stephansplatz at night and I got dinner. Then I went back to the hostel to prepare for a very early morning flight back to Copenhagen.

To see my other pictures I took in Vienna click here!