Cheeseburger in Paradise

On Saturday we took three buses and a train to get from Tisovec to Vienna. I didn't get to see everything I wanted to see, but what I saw was pretty great.

From Bratislava it's about an hour by train to Vienna. Once you get into Austria things are almost immediately different; of course the signs are suddenly in German, and the general topography isn't radically different, but you can definitely tell you're in a wealthier country. Some travel guides lump Vienna in with Eastern Europe, but I would classify it as Western, without a doubt.

When we got to Vienna, the first place we went was to Stephensplatz to see the cathedral. Part of the outside has scaffolding on it, which is not very impressive, but overall the effect is striking. St. Stephen's is quite big. The inside was even better. I must say that it reminded me of the (fake) cathedral interiors in "A Knight's Tale"--I think it was the amount of space inside. It seemed to me that St. Stephen's is bigger than St. Patrick's. It's certainly older. The ceiling had an interesting vaulting that I couldn't and still can't place; if someone knows, tell me. Parts of the ceiling were just a ribbed vault, but then there were crazy parts too.

While we were there we heard some musicians performing. I'm not sure why, but there was a choir and an orchestra somewhere. I have a short video that I haven't been successful in uploading here yet, but I'll keep trying (it doesn't help that the error message is in Slovak). The cathedral has not one but two pipe organs: the big one over the entrance in the front and a smaller (but still quite large) one nearer to the altar.

One of the chapels was the burial place of Prince Eugene of Savoy, and in the crypt are buried more members of the old Austrian nobility. Visitors can also go into the towers of the cathedral. There's even an elevator in one of them.

There was tons of stuff to see while we were walking around, but some of it I didn't know what it was because we were never able to look at the signs. We saw the plague column, and a place where there are some old Roman foundations, and a Steiff store with a huge stuffed bear outside.

Don't know what that is, but it looks pretty darn imperial

We also went to the Albertina to see the Van Gogh exhibit that's there until December 8. I was hoping that they'd have my favorite, The Olive Trees, on loan from MoMA, but they didn't. In fact, all of the pieces were new to me. Most of them were drawings, rather than paintings, and they showed Van Gogh's progression from realism to his iconic style later in life.

For dinner we ate at a place called 1516, a brew pub that people had recommended. Sure, it wasn't really classy Viennese cuisine, but there were cheeseburgers, and they were so good. So, so good. Apparently the beer was pretty good as well, but I couldn't say from experience. All I know is how good my cheeseburger was.

After dinner we walked around some and saw where the Christmas market is set up, although all of the booths were closed because it was late. We left for Bratislava again around 11:24. I wish I could have seen more, but if things work out I'll be back in Vienna next month.