First Impessions

Dogs! everywhere I look, people have dogs on leads, even in the main part of he city.

If I took notice of the food outlets throughout the city, I would be forced to conclude that the Viennese diet consists only of pizza, cakes and ice cream, with a few token Schnitzels thrown in for the tourists.

Did I mention the dogs? We saw them sitting in shop doorways and sitting beside the counters.

Serious. One thing Vienna does not seem to be is ‘Smile City’. Stern to almost surly. Nod and say hello and they look sideways at you, even the people walking their dogs if you smile and talk to their pets. There are a few exceptions, like all the staff at our hotel – they are all smiling and happy.

We started with the obligatory visit to St Stephens Cathedral. They are doing a lot of restoration work on the Cathedral, and once you walk inside, you realise how huge it really is. Unfortunately we couldn’t match our times with the tours to the crypts or the towers.

Afterwards, I thought -‘What do I associate with Vienna’ – two things Schnitzel and the Danube, so I set off in search of the Danube, only seemed a short distance on the map.

Tough reading the German signs, then saw several pointing to a place called ‘Einbahn’ Looked like big important place, so decided to follow them – likely find the Danube there.

Took me an hour to figure out that sign meant ‘One Way’

Another hour to find my way back!

Anyway, finally found the Danube – well sort of – between the Danube and I were a few obstacles – a main road with crossings, a train line and a big wire fence. Eventually found a crossing, and boy do Austrians cater to bikes and pedestrians – quite a climb to the overpass to get to the Danube so…

And finally the Danube (not quite the BLUE Danube of repute, but the Danube anyway)

Now take a close look at the building in the background. Either I was having a bad eyesight day, someone has done a bad air-brushing in Photoshop, the architects only did pencil drawings, or they ran short of materials.

Did I mention the dogs??? They cater very well to dog owners.

Now to track down ‘The Schnitzel’. Pam and Evatt had insisted we must try the schnitzel at Cafe Pruckel, so off we went on our search.

Yes we found and the schnitzel was great.

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