Thursday, February 5, 2015

Road trip! Vienna Austria

 Vienna, Austria
 because it's pretty close, (under 4 hours) and has Starbucks. 
It is an amazing city with beautiful buildings and friendly people. 
The official language is German, the official name is Wien,
the English say Vienna, borrowed from the Italian name Vienna,
and the Croatian name is Beč.

So Tom, Shealyn and I drove there just before Christmas;
to see the sights, shop at the Christmas Market, and get Starbucks coffee!
Vienna road trip - December 23-24, 2014

We walked around the famous Christmas market located in front of the city hall.  “The Christkindlmarkt on the Rathausplatz” which is pretty big - with 145 wooden stalls and very festive - all decorated and lit up. 
This included a  Christmas tree so big I could not get a picture of it. I read that this year the tree was a 140 year-old, 28 meter tall spruce from the village of Olang in South Tyrol’s Puster Valley.
There was plenty of food and things to buy - and it was wall to wall people! which did make it a little tough at times but it added to the atmosphere. 

VERY COOL IDEA:
All the hot drinks come in a real mug! which you can return and get your 'deposit' back or keep as a souvenir. 
I loved that I could walk around with a real mug and the idea of a fun souvenir!  {From what I read, there has been a new souvenir designed mug dating back to 1992.} We ordered hot chocolate, and yes, we kept our mugs.

My ornaments bought at the Christmas Market
More pictures of Vienna: 
Once we checked in and parked the car, we walked everywhere!
churches
Statues
Buildings
This is the  Dorotheum Auction Building, like a museum - but free, a must see.


So Vienna is worth a trip...or two
A few of the above photos and all the below are from our first trip to Vienna back in April;) 
Photos from our 1st trip to Vienna  - April 2014
In December some of the statues are wrapped up and the outside vendors are inside. It is an easy city to walk around and we enjoyed the good food, my favorite was a great Indian lunch we had. And of course the great coffee


No comments:

Post a Comment