Vienna, Austria

Photo credit: lonelyplanet.com

Vienna is more modern and not as beautiful as I expected it to be, but nonetheless it is a city of fine arts, and that was enough for me.

1. Mozarthaus
Before the trip started, visiting the Mozarthaus was the only thing that I knew I had to do. Years and years ago, I fell in love with Mozart's music when I learned his flute concerto in G major, which is basically a rite of passage for flutists. I still have a good portion of that concerto memorized, and I can feel the keys and the air passing through the flute as I think about it. (Yes, I miss playing just a bit.) 

Anyway, Mozart spent a lot of his life in Vienna, and one of his apartments was turned into a museum. Patti and I went together, and while both of us are terrible at directions, we were very proud of ourselves for figuring out where it was on our own (only with a couple questions to passersby along the way).

Outside the Mozarthaus!

While there weren't many originals in the apartment (as they are spread out in various museums across the continent), it was still really cool to walk through the rooms Mozart did himself a couple hundred years ago. 

Just outside Mozart's apartment. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures inside.

There was a special exhibit on Salieri, who was another lesser-known composer during Mozart's time. It seemed like the exhibit was dedicated partly to debunking the myth that there were ill relations between the two composers, as movies such as "Amadeus" have proposed. ("Amadeus" is a great movie though, I highly recommend it if you like classical music at all!) 

Patti and I also made friends with one of the workers there, and he was eager and willing to answer any questions we had. We just laughed afterward because we completely forgot to ask his name.

2. A €4 ballet at the Vienna State Opera House

Right after Mozarthaus, we met the rest of the girls at the Vienna State Opera House, which is the beautiful, main opera house in the city. To our chagrin, the rest of the girls had showered and put on nice clothes, whereas I was in green cargo pants and a jean jacket, and Patti was wearing leggings. But since our standing room ticket for the ballet was only €4, we figured that nothing much could be expected of us anyway. 

In our standing room area at the ballet! People used scarves to save their "seats."

The ballet was split into three parts, and each part was extremely different. The first was very modern, the second modern as well but with more visual and audio elements, and the third was my favorite, as it had a live pit orchestra.

During the intermissions, we watched as classy, older couples in extravagant clothing sat down at pre-set tables with platters of caviar and more fancy food. Then I pulled out a water bottle from my purse, along with the tiramisu nuts I had bought at the Naschmarkt earlier. Saving money likes pros there.

3. Schönbrunn Palace

Just about a 15-minute train ride outside the city center is the Schönbrunn Palace, which was the summer residence of the Habsburg family. Even more magnificent than the lavish interior of the palace were the sprawling gardens. I wished I could be one of the runners casually jogging through the finely cut hedges, past ornate statues and up the hill to the little reflecting pool.

The next day we left the Wombats City Hostel (by the way, we stayed in a Wombats hostel in both Vienna and Budapest, and while they're not the most social hostels, they do have an awesome all-you-can-eat breakfast for less than €4) and headed to our last stop: Budapest, Hungary