Vienna For The Weekend!

We decided to go to Vienna for the weekend, to catch up with some good friends who moved there over a year ago. We met Sean and Sara in Singapore... well, that's not totally true - we met Sean in HongKong! They too were living in Singapore, and Sean was at the same conference Dean was at; a friendship was born, who knew something good could come out of HongKong?!

So to Vienna to see them, and they new, beautiful, adorable wee one! Stella Mei, what a doll!
She was wee bun in the oven the last time we saw Sean and Sara; it was great to see them, see her, at catch up with eachother.

Got a chance to see some of the old churches in "town square" location. That was cool; I love the old churches in Europe. Some of them are so amazingly old, it's mind blowing!

Inside St.Stephens Cathedral, (in German Stephansdom) the church behind us in the first photo, very interesting! Mozart's Pauper's Funeral, in 1791, was performed in this church. Thankfully, a lot of the churches main treasures and artworks were not ruined during WW2, or any of the other nasty violent historical happening which occurred in this location. In the "basement" (catacombs) are a schwack of dead guys, important ones of course: for instance 72 members of the Habsburg Dynasty, (one of the most important royal houses in Europe).













Tons of statues, inside the church and out. The one I like most, big surprise, was this little guy ->
Oh come on, baby bums are cute, you know it's true.
I mean really, lots of statues, most of which are big and... well, yucky; that one's cute!

One of the main attractions in St. Stephen's Cathedral is the altarpiece, which was finished in 1447! It was originally in another location (near Klagenfurt) until 1786, then went on to the city of Wiener Neustadt. Then finally, in 1885, it was sold to St. Stephen's Cathedral when the Wiener Neustadt monastery closed. It has been here ever since.
It is a very fancy, gold leaf embellished altar, which displays three main figures: the Virgin Mary, naturally, and St Catherine and St Barbara.
Very ornate, and quite impressive.

Lots of candles, of course, carrying prayers heavenward. We didn't light one - it's just not Meissen...

The Hofburg Imperial Palace, built in the thirteenth century, was very impressive; it's the center building in the photo above. This was originally a castle, occupied by the imperial family until 1918. It now houses the office of the president of Austria, as well as being a congress center and location of many art collections.

The thing I liked most in this location had nothing to do with fancy-pants imperial hoity-toities and their art collections:

I loved the horses!
There were horse drawn carriages coming from all directions, and I loved watching, and smelling, the horses as they trotted past!  *sigh

Now, I have to pause for a moment to share this with you: she's a thing of beauty, no?! Quite the hooters!
Oh-my-word.
This is a "sculpture" display in the window of the Hofzucher Bäcker Demel, a bakery on one of the streets we wandered down.
Quite the work of art for a window display... wouldn't you agree?
Yup, she's covered in icing and chocolates.
Interesting.
Definitely got people to stop and check-a-look, so I guess she did her job!

Okay, back to the Hofburg; when we went into the center court of the Hofburg Imperial Palace, it was actually quite nice, and fairly peaceful and quiet - compared to out on the main street area.
If you're wondering what time of day we were there, well you can check-a-look the old fashioned way, (if you know how) or look right above and see we were there at 13:46.
A clock for the old, and a clock for the new  >^_^<
I don't know how to read the old, so good thing there was a new too.

There were a number of impressive statues in this area as well, not that that's a surprise.
Good to know you're protected from any stray lions or bulls that might be in the general vicinity.
Trust Hercules to watch your back. He was all over the place, fighting off many different forms of wild creature.
<- This picture gives you an idea just how big some of these statues are. Those Hofburg's really knew how to build a nice shack; it's good to royal.
Impressive.

When we went out the other gate, through the back, we were greeted by this galloping soldier. Nice.

Actually, the cool thing in this location was a random lady with a really big bubble making contraption, making bubbles for the kids to enjoy. 

The just stood there, waited for the right wind, and made bubbles.

There were bubbles everywhere.
The string bubble thing she was using made HUGE, multiple bubbles, and the wind was perfect for it.
The adults were watching their children, and taking copious photos.

While the kids were running, laughing, and leaping to pop the bubbles. Hours of entertainment! It was cool.

This area, Volksgarten, is actually a public park which was created around 1823. It's quite pretty; I didn't get a picture of the gardens, they're not very exciting this time of year, but I thought it was neat that they had this replica of the Greek Temple of Hephaestus (Theseion), and in the background you can see an old church.

We went to a Weihnachtsmarkt, (Christmas Market); I just love those!
They had all the little shops set up, with all the same/different thing for sale.

I am hoping to get to a medieval market at some point this year; I really enjoyed the one every year in Dresden while we were living there!

This one, being in Vienna I suppose, had a different version of the German glühwein, using champagne, wine, and grape juice.



Good, very sweet though.







Nice to have something hot on such a cold day though!!

The main Weihnachtsmarkt was set up as well, however it was the weekend, and there were thousands of people there - no thnx, I left that behind in Asia thank you!   0_0
Even the little market we did go to was very crowded.
I was very thankful that Sara could join us for the afternoon, after Stella Mei's lunch; it was nice to do some catching up! I always enjoy our visits  >^_^<

Now, while out checking-a-look, and freeze, we decided we must stop for coffee! We found the Cafe Griensteidl which is very well known, so popped in there to warm up - after all it was Kaffee und Kuchen time.
So Laura, I had the cake you told me I "MUST TRY": the Sacher-Torte. Well, I have to say, the one I had at this restaurant was veeeeery tasty. Dean said he has had it before and it was not so good, so I was a bit leary; this one lived up to your raves! I didn't feel done when it was finished; I wanted more... yum.
Thank you for the recommendation.

All in all, the trip was wonderful.

We enjoyed our visit with Sean, Sara, and little Stella Mei; nice to get caught up again.

It was nice to have a private tour guide take us around the main spots in the center area, giving us quick history lessons on this and that in such a short trip. Two days is not a very long time; it was long enough to touch base, and feel good knowing your friends are in a good place  >^_^<

I also very much enjoyed playing with beautiful little Stella Mei, and watching her face lite up when she got excited about something.
CUTE!!

Then it was time to hop back on the plane and zip home again. It's nice that it's only a 65 minute flight; you just get settled in, and it's time to begin getting ready for landing! Love it.

Dean's little secret of booking us in an aisle and window seat worked both going to and coming home from Vienna, YaaaaaaaY, that meant I could put my feet up on the seat between us (or on Dean) during the flight while Dean read.  >^_^<

Funny story - I recently read a list of the top ten most annoying things people do during a flight, and doing this apparently ranks right up in amongst the highest. Hahahaha.  Good thing I know my row sharer, and he loves me.
He's a good plane buddy.

During the flight, the pilot came on to make the usual announcements, but made a bit of a boops. With his German accent, he said "Thank you, and goodbye ... oh, no, wait, I am staying right here, so I won't say goodbye yet. Anyway, have a nice flight."   HAHAHAHA - Dean and I cracked up! Too funny.
When we were disembarking, I was hoping to see the pilot so I could thank him for not leaving the plane during the flight...  >^_^<    He was not there, so I could not.