Steps today 26 799 / 17.65km
When we are on vacation, coffee & croissant is enough for breakfast so it's not important to us to have breakfast included. If it is, fine but it's not a must - we like the pay as you go option. This morning, after the fun and games of the night before, we slept in (which for us means 7:30ish) and took it easy by having breakfast at the hotel.
We hit the road just after 9AM feeling well rested and well fed - ready to start the day and the vacation!
As you know, we are walkers and the time it takes to get to the main tourist area of Vienna from our hotel is about 30-40 minutes through the grounds of the Belvedere Palace so it was a great way to start and end our days, we only used public transportation once on the end of the last day.
We hit the majority of the main sights pretty quickly. The Schwarzenberg Palace was completely closed off for renovations so we couldn't get any shots, but got nice views of Hochstrahlbrunnen with the Soviet Memorial, the Karlskirche (behind some scaffolds), the Opera House (waited almost 10 minutes for that yellow bus to get out of the shot and it didn't!) and of course St. Stephen's Cathedral.
Then it was time to start the "Sacher versus Demel" taste test. Sachertorte is Austria's most famous desert invented almost 200 years ago and both Hotel Sacher and Café Demel profess that it their claim to fame. I am not a dessert person, but I am pretty sure it's illegal not to have Sacher Cake when in Austria, so I had to jump in. We actually did this the last time we were here back in 2007, but that was before taking food-pics was a thing so I don't really remember the experience and which one I liked better.
Today, it would be Hotel Sacher's turn, so off we went! I had mine with a shot of GM to push it down LOL... and don't you think the crumbs on the point make it "un-gram-able" but whatever, I ate about half and it was pretty much what I expected.
After this "snack", we walked through the Hofburg area, the Parliament Building, the Rathaus (couldn't get great shots because of the circus tents erected infront GRRRR) and the Votive Church.
The walk became increasingly hot in the sun and it was getting really comfortable so we searched for a place to have refreshments. I am not a beer drinker at all, therefore Radler (aka Shandy or Panaché) is as close as it gets for me. It's 60% lemonade (or sprite, or other citrus mix) and 40% Pilsner beer so it's diluted down to about 2% alcohol. We pulled up to some bar stools and enjoyed the break - in addition there was a big cycling race on TV Frank really wanted to see so we felt good.
Next, it was a walk through the Burggarten to see the Mozart Memorial and also a visit to the Butterfly House. We wanted to visit in 2007 but kept missing our chance. We didn't linger long because it was so hot and humid and CROWDED, poor Frank was dripping sweat when we left. It wasn't fun.
After this, and we made our way back to the main touristy area to look for a place to eat.
It took forever to find a place: outside was too cold in the shade, too crowded under the heat lamps, too many smokers, too much fast-food, too many desserty places... we FINALY found a good spot with a nice terrace, but we ate inside anyway. Schnitzel again and it was great!
After supper, the "long" walk back to the hotel, a nightcap at the hotel lounge next door again, and we called it a day. We were down with the sun.
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