Vienna

Vienna was the third stop on the winter trip, and it serves as a bit of a cautionary tale, or at least a tale about when circumstances coincide in ways that are less than ideal.  I arrived in a very very cold Vienna, more or less at the midpoint of my trip, suffering from too many good times in Berlin and Prague and a serious case of Prague withdrawal.  There wasn’t much fuel in the tank for exploring and the inclement conditions definitely didn’t help things.  Of all the trips I’d taken before and that I’ve taken since Vienna, it stands out as the one place that I didn’t really love, but I chalk that up to that aforementioned conditions. 

That being said, there were still some cool stuff to see and do.  Vienna is famous as one of the capitals of classical music, especially opera, and their opera house is magnificent.  Tickets normally start at about 40 € or so, which was obviously outside of my price range, but they offer standing room tickets for only 2,50€, allowing you inside of the building and to see the show. 

The catch is that there’s only a set number of tickets, and so you have stand in line outside in the cold to get your ticket.  So despite a lingering feeling (or lack thereof) of frostbite in my toes, we were able to get in to see a performance of Die Zauberflöte (the Magic Flute) by Mozart, which was really neat.  And for 2,50€, I didn’t feel bad about leaving at intermission. 

I also really enjoyed the Freud Museum, located just off one of the canals in the Bergasse neighborhood.  The museum is housed in the flat where Freud lived for the majority of his life, before he fled the country to London as the Nazis closed in on Austria’s capital.  Coincidentally, a lot of Freud’s belongings are housed in a museum in London, including the infamous couch, but there’s still plenty to see and take in as part of the museum. 

As someone who had read a lot of Freud in college, it was neat to be in the flat where he went about exploring and developing his theories of the unconscious.  Vienna has a ton of other museums, as well, and I didn’t get a chance unfortunately to visit the Leopold Museum, which houses works by Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt. 

Despite blustery conditions, we also checked out the Schönbrunn Palace in the southeastern part of the city, and while it was impressive in the snow, I can’t imagine how beautiful it would be in warmer weather, with the surrounding gardens in full bloom.  And as such, the last statement encapsulates my feeling about Vienna as a whole.  I would love to return someday with warmer weather and the ability to wander around freely without feeling like hypothermia was a real concern.