Vienna Part One

Wow, welcome to December! It's only taken me 6 months to post all these photos. However,we are almost to the end of the trip! One of our last stops was Vienna. When we were planning our adventure from the comforts of our homes, we decided to go from Venice to Prague via Vienna. Little did we know, there is no train from Venice to Vienna... we took a train to the border of Italy and Austria and then had to take a bus from that town to Vienna. It was a long journey but northern Italy is so so beautiful. The mountains, mist, green grass and cute little skiing cottages were just breathtaking. Totally worth the bus trip! We stayed with a very nice couple in Vienna via Couchsurfing and the husband was actually from MN! How crazy right?

The first day we were there, we wandered by ourselves and had a drink at night with our host who was lovely! Vienna has a very European, almost elegant looking downtown. All the buildings are very well kept and many of the facades are very elaborate. I think that's why I liked it so much! It also felt very old world. There were lots of horse-drawn carriages and people dressed up like  Even though it is a large European city, it felt warm and welcoming. I really liked Vienna a lot and hope to go back again someday to see more!

St. Steven's Cathedral

Pretzels as big as your head!

Hofburg palace

Since there was a fee and my friend didn't want to go, I visited the National Library, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, on my own. To say this place was amazing would be an understatement. If I could live in a dream world, this would be my library and I would flit around reading and sailing around on the rolling ladders. 

  

After the library, we stumbled upon a band playing in a big square. It added quite a bit of atmosphere to hear them playing while you were walking along taking in the sights.

The front of the National Library

Tomorrow, I'll show you the rest of our time in Vienna. We headed over to Schonbrunn Palace which was amazing!