Vienna and the Art Hole

So the post that I wrote last night never published until I sent it just now. We're in Prague! We're staying at the Art Hole hostel, and so far its very fun and the staff is very friendly and helpful. But before we get to that, we need to catch up! So, Vienna day 2!

We started the day by going to a tourist center to get some information and good maps. I took the route along one of Viennas main shopping districts, and saw even more cat advertisements. Awesome. I also walker through a really nice house behind the main museums and saw a butterfly house. (The german word for butterfly is schmetterling. Such a fun word. But apparently to schmetter something is to smash it? So theyre like, little smashers? For the way they fly I guess.) apparently theres something about rabbits in vienna, I saw a couple of colored rabbit statues throughout the city. Then we headed to the ridiculously fancy Sacher cafe, world famous for their Sacher chocolate cake. It was too early for me to get a chocolate cake, but mine was a delicious nut cake, and I got to try some of andreas chocolate. Everything was delicious.

We got a hop-on-hop-off bus pass from the tourist center, so we began a trip around the city stopping for the sites. The first place we stopped was a huge church that was apparently built when the royal family survived a plague. We then rounded the church to check out  the rathaus (city hall) and parliament building. There was a theater nearby that when it was built had terrible accoustics AND lighting, so apparently there used to be a saying that in the rathaus you cant see anything, in parliament you cant hear anything, and in the theater you cant see or hear. Also the rathaus had a really nice park by it with tons of benches. Parks everywhere. And WHILE WE WERE THERE there was a conference on walkable cities AT THE RATHAUS. But apparently civilians werent invited!! DDDDD: I WANTED TO GO

We then returned to our bus stop, walking through sigmund freud park on the way, where there was an interesting abstract sculpture. Also, vienna has adorable walk signs.

The bus took us through the jewish quarter (with a very creative appartment building) and past a kind of amusement park area, with one of the oldest functioning ferris wheels. We then circled a newer part of the city where you can bungee jump off a tall building, and got off to wander around a park in the middle of the danube that was built to help dry up the swamp that was the north east side. 

Our next stop was a huge park with statues of famous artists spread theoughout, and a very pretty landscape clock. After which we continued to Mozart Cafe for a gorgeous and fancy lunch. I had a pumpkin quiche that was ridiculously good. 

Next we killed some time in the park until it was time to line up for stand up seats for the opera, Don Giovanni. I found yet another mozart statue.

On the way to the opera I saw a very nice dramatic fountain, and yet another comored rabbit. The opera itself was amazing, and the theater was beautiful. The standing seats behind the main seating area are dirt cheap, but also crowded, and you have to save your place by tying a scarf to the railing. Very interesting experience.

After the opera we went back to the hostel for an early night, because we were getting up early to go to salzburg the next day. Salzburg was absolutely gorgeous, the birthplace of mozart, the "Silent Night" christmas carol, and setting for The Sound of Music. I have tons of beautiful scenery photos.