Vienna on a Wednesday

One of my good German friends, Julia, texted me one day saying she had found some cheap flights to Vienna (22 Euros = 25 USD) and asked if I wanted to join her. "Of course!" I said, and two weeks later we were spending a Wednesday exploring and eating our way through Vienna.

When we moved here, these were the adventures I had in mind. Finding cheap deals to cool new cities

across Europe. Unfortunately, COVID has made it difficult and in the day-to-day "busy-ness" I haven't made it a priority.

This trip was exactly what I needed to reset my goals for the next year of travel.

Julia and I travel very similarly where we have a general idea of what we want to do and see but a heavy focus on just exploring, stumbling upon gems, and a "figure it out as we go" mentality.

Once we landed at the Vienna airport we took the train to downtown and quite easily found our hotel. We stayed at Hotel Nestroy Wien which is an easy 20 min walk to the main downtown area. We stayed on our side of the canal that night for dinner and started our "food tour" with the classic Weiner Schnitzel at Tethys.

"Wiener schnitzel is a type of schnitzel made of a thin, breaded, pan-fried veal cutlet. It is one of the best known specialties of Viennese cuisine, and one of the national dishes of Austria.", according to Wikipedia. When many people think of a schnitzel, they think of Germany (or for my southern Indiana readers, a pork tenderloin), I was also surprised to learn that it was originally an Austrian cuisine made with veal. Either way you enjoy the schnitzel, highly recommend it.

That night we were looking for a place to grab a late night drink. We found a really cool underground club called Bricks where I tried my first Cosmopolitan. Unfortunately, middle of the week at 11pm was not exactly prime time for this bar but that didn't stop us from having fun dancing and singing along with the music while talking and sipping our cosmos (insert fancy pinkie out motion here).

The next day was our big explore the entire city day. We walked over 10 miles/16 km that day! We started by checking off another Vienna classic food in the form of Vienna-Style coffee at Café Central. In my novice opinion, it is very similar to a classic cappuccino with a bit more foam. After Cafe Central, we found the Volksgarten where we took some fun pictures surrounded by the gorgeous landscaping and roses. We continued wandering the city finding great picture points and stunning architecture at every turn.

Julia found out I had never tried bubble tea. And before my die hard bubble tea loving friends get mad, you

need to know I've never had anything against bubble tea. I just never truly had the opportunity or there was an ice cream option available and that will always win out. Anyways, I tried a fruity bubble tea from Le Chá and it was very yummy. Julia

chose a crème brulee tea which was interesting and delicious to see a torch used on a cold drink. On our way to bubble tea we stumbled upon a chocolate shop that caught my eye so we wandered inside where we learned Confiserie De Vienne takes great pride in their chocolate recipe, uses only the best ingredients, and refuses to include preservatives of any kind in their chocolates. Of course we understood that to mean they needed to be consumed ASAP and we took that very seriously. ;)

Another small detour on our way to bubble tea was TK Maxx (TJ Maxx in the States). I can proudly say I have now been in TJ/K Maxx in three countries: USA, Germany, and Austria. This is a weird fact only if you don't know my love for this store. :)

Dinner that night was far from a Vienna classic but it was next to the schnitzel place from the first night and we both had been craving Asian food since we arrived. Ramen for me, sushi and gyoza for Julia. It was fantastic! We also came across some old uncovered Roman ruins in the center of one of the main parts of town.

On our final day, we checked yet another Vienna classic food off the list in the form of a deliciously dense chocolate cake. The Sacher Torte is made with minimalistic ingredients including: butter, sugar, eggs, chocolate, flour, apricot jam(!) and traditionally served with a side of whipped cream.

Our quick girls trip/food tour through Vienna was a happy success and something I would like to do more often! Who knows, maybe I'll even get brave and do a solo trip one of these days. ;)

Please note: None of the links I included in this post are affiliate links. I simply included them for educational purposes and easy access to hotel and restaurant links for those who were curious.