Vienna

The first leg of my journey is done, I’m writing this while sitting in a nearly empty Austrian Airline airplane flying somewhere over Serbia en route to Pristina, Kosovo (the posting however was done a little later). When I woke up this morning, I felt some excitement but also slightly nervous knowing that the real adventure is about to begin… Because let’s be honest, Vienna is beautiful and majestic, but in terms of the unknown, adventure and discoveries, it does not make the top of the list :).

Story number 1 of this two / two and a half months Eastern and Mediterranean Euro trip (let’s see how many will roll out of my keyboard): Vienna, Austria!

Vienna, for a while the European (at the time some might even have dared thinking it the world’s) centre of culture, politics and power, on this trip feels to me more as the border between East and West and perhaps even as the last stronghold of the Europe I’m familiar with. When planning my itinerary, Vienna was cut out a couple of times, but I kept putting it back in as the first stop, perhaps to create a short and comfortable buffer zone to get back in the travel mode without too big of a culture shock, but also partly because Vienna airport is a hub for a lot of Eastern European flights. Vienna as springboard to the East does not only exist in my mind apparently!

The Vienna adventure started on Sunday 29 August on an EasyJet flight. An Austrian-Dutch couple was sitting next to me and the woman asked me if this was the first time I was going to Vienna – yes, if it was for a holiday – yes and what I was planning to do – and that’s where my mind went completely blank and I couldn’t come up with a single thing to say except stutter that I was planning on walking around and that I wasn’t very well prepared… to say the least! Although I had performed a thorough study of all the activities in Kosovo and North Macedonia and I had spent half my holiday in Normandy checking out hotels on Greek islands, I forgot to prepare for Vienna. I had booked a hotel and that’s it, full stop. With no preparation also came no expectation so then everything is a surprise, good or bad.

A good surprise was that apparently the Viennese love coffee and ice cream/cake, the key to my heart! On every street corner you can find a coffee shop (not the Dutch type) also selling delicious cakes and/or an ice cream parlour. Some are big cafes in full ‘classical’ style with white table linen and wooden panelled interior while others are a mere – literally – window through which you place your order and are handed back a delicious Wiener melange (Austrian for cappuccino as I found out). I noticed a lot of people sitting down and having a coffee and cake or just eating an ice cream cone on their way home at the end of the afternoon. Needless to say, I participated in this local custom; when in Rome…

My main activity in Vienna consisted of walking around and looking at the many beautiful building that to me felt as if decorated with whipped cream and sprinkled with fine toppings and dipped in nice pastel colours. I visited the art history museum which could have been the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam based on the great number of Dutch and Flemish painters on display, not too big of a culture shock so far. As I didn’t have enough time to go to the Schonbrunn palace located just outside town I walked to the Belvedere Palace in the city, visited the surrounding gardens including the botanical garden. After a lunch in a hipster café that I spotted on a Dutch travel blog, I walked around the 6th and 7th district which I understood are the city’s more creative/hip/artistic districts. I could feel a more laidback vibe compared to the busy and touristic city centre and this seemed to be the place where people actually live instead of all twhipped cream palace apartments in the centre.

Vienna was a short stop and I wish I had more time to visit another museum, do some shopping (there is currently no room left in my backpack so if I want to bring back a souvenir, something else has to go instead) and try out some more restaurants, but I’m not sure Vienna is going to become one of my favourite cities ever, although I can't clearly say why. Please don’t hate me if you love this city, but to me it felt a little too perfect, too organised and missing a special vibe or livelihood. This might be a Covid effect or could be linked to the fact that I was there on a Sunday afternoon and Monday and that quite some shops were closed, but perhaps the glory days of the city have faded and it now turned more into a museum for others to enjoy instead of creating and emanating its own energy for locals to enjoy. I would be happy to hear other opinions or coming back and being shown around by a real Vienna lover and hopefully change my mind :-).

Kosovo here I come!