Random Vienna Pics

On the last full day we had in Vienna, we had a chance to meet a friend for lunch. Coincidentally it was such a lovely, sunny day, so we sat on an open terrace and got a suntan afterwards ha ha ha ha...She took us around an area and told us about where to go shopping and gave us ideas. It was just nice to catch up with her and enjoy the sun, too.

Anyway, this is what I ate that day. Spicy chicken briyani or something like that. It was DELICIOUS (and spicy enough that I didn't have to add any chili sauce)! :-D Forgot how much it cost, but it wasn't too outrageous.

R2 had Chicken Schnitzel, which was also delicious (he said). :-D
 

We found this guy in Stephansplatz area. The next day there was a different guy in another spot in Stephansplatz, doing something like this. In the beginning I was wondering if he was really a person 'coz he didn't move a muscle, but I noticed that the wind was blowing his sleeves he he...

And guess where this lady is sitting????

Voila! Uppppppp high on a Burberry store in Stephansplatz ha ha...I only noticed it when R2 was trying to find our way somewhere, so we were sitting on some benches and I was looking around the place.

From the same sitting spot, I zoomed in on this statue. Mind you that those are live birds he he he...it was funny 'coz there's a bird down there and it looked as if the statue were looking at it. :-D
 

And after lunch our friend sadly had to go to work, so we went to Marienhilf area to go shopping (she said it was a good shopping street and the prices aren't as high as in Stephansplatz). I found some pairs of leggings at such a good bargain and a pair of jeans on a discount he he...


Anyway, R2 saw the car and I told him to pose in front of it HI HI HI HI HI...
 

This building facade looked lovely, don't you think? Found this after we passed by Naschmarkt area and we were standing in front of one of the Asian supermarkets in that area. 


 

Another random stuff we found there...a lovely ball on top of a building.

And I found this sign to be SO cute (I mean the dog is cute!)

OK, I guess that's all for now. Gotta prepare myself to work. Have a lovely weekend, people!!!

Albertina + Natural Arts Museum

In Vienna we went to two museums. The first one was Albertina. They were displaying artworks made by the Impressionists, although there were also the abstract section, but we didn't go there because I'm not into that. We didn't use any audio guide for both museums, so we were just looking around at the paintings mostly. The Natural Arts Museum is FAR bigger than Albertina, but as usual we weren't allowed to take any pics of the places.

Anyway, here are some pics of Albertina. I was really fascinated by these stairs! I think the painting must be some kind of waterlily painting by Monet or something like that. Unfortunately there were only a few small Monet paintings there, though I would have loved to see more. I bought a thick and heavy Monet book when I was in Indo and I left it there. Maybe someday I should take it to Finland with me.

 
Then here's us after we ended our tour in Albertina.

While walking around the city, we passed by the building again, but from a different angle, so here's the pic:

In Natural Arts Museum, there was this one section dedicated to Klimt. It was a small but fascinating section, but what blew my mind was the sizes of other rooms of the building. It really had tall ceilings and some of the paintings were SO HUGE that if one fell over you, you'd be knocked out right away. To see the huge paintings well, I had to step farther back across the room in order to enjoy it. And there were so many huge rooms and paintings to cover that it took so long to finish (this is without audio guide, I can't imagine how much longer the tour would take with audio guide!!!).

The below pic only shows half of the museum, 'coz the other parts looked like they were being renovated on, so I didn't take a pic of that part. 

Zooming in on the dome:

Anyway, in the middle of the rooms for the paintings, there was a really charming cafe with a lovely dome on top. I wasn't sure if we could take pics of the cafe or not, but I saw some other tourists doing so and nobody said anything, so I took a quick pic of the dome and the cafe from one angle. Here they are:

OK, that's it for today. It finally feels like permanent spring has arrived, but let's keep our fingers crossed so that no more snow will come ha ha...My MIL told me that in the old days, it was usual to snow still in June. Anyway, take care, people, and have a lovely day there!

Sisi Museum, Imperial Apts and Imperial Silver Collection

Let's carry on with our Vienna trip diary, shall we? One afternoon we decided to visit Sisi Museum in Hofburg (in Stephansplatz), but turned out we got there too late. The Imperial Silver Collection closes at 5 pm if I remember correctly and we were there at around 4 pm. Luckily for us, the ticket lady told us that it took about 2,5 hours to cover everything, so she suggested coming another day. So the next day we went straight there to make sure that we got there early so we'd have plenty of time to see everything.

Because we knew we didn't have time to visit Schönbrunn Palace (which was farther away from where we stayed), we didn't buy the combined Sisi ticket with Schönbrunn, but if we had had time, we would have chosen that combined ticket. The tickets we paid allowed us to enter Sisi Museum, see the Imperial Apartments as well as the Imperial Silver Collection, but we were only allowed to take pics in the Imperial Silver Collection rooms. Mind you that the collection covered gold, as well. So it was really bling bling he he...

Again like in Mozart's House, we had to get audio guides so we could listen to the stories behind everything. It was really a vast place with lots of things to see and hear, so it did take about 2,5 hours at least to cover everything. Was it worth it? ABSOLUTELY!!!! It was amazing to see what a full set of dining table looked like in a palace in the old days including everything else they had to offer like stories about Empress Sisi (I hadn't known anything about her prior to this trip). It was amazing to see the piles of cutlery needed every day for the whole palace household (can't imagine having to wash them all every single day by hand ha ha...). Click here if you wanna see pics of Sisi Museum and read some stories.

This is a picture of Hofburg Palace from one side (there were so many buildings around it so I had to split the photo into two parts). Apparently they're renovating something there:

A pic of Hofburg from the other side - sorry I couldn't take a good panoramic pic without cutting some parts of the palace (either the dome or the lower side of the palace) ha ha...Click to see a bigger version.

Here are some pics from inside the Imperial Silver Collection. In the first pic R2 is listening to the audio guide (the tool he's holding with his right hand).

 

 

And apparently there's some Chinese influence, too, during a certain period of time.

After we finished this tour, we entered Sisi Museum and from then we could see the Imperial Apartments, but couldn't take pics. It was just interesting to know that if there's a certain banquet with the Empress for example, once the queen put her eating utensils, then the dinner was over, so Empress Sisi had to make sure that she was still holding the knife or fork until everybody else had finished eating. And there was also this rule that one could only talk to the one sitting on one's left or right in the palace dining table.

Another interesting thing to know was that King Franz Joseph was a busy man. He worked every day from morning till 10 pm (from around 4 am or 5 am). He accepted people to come to his work chamber and present whatever they wanted to tell and the waiting room for those people was the same. So it didn't matter what kind of rank or job the visitors had. They'd all be waiting in the same waiting room and each of them could meet the King face to face. :-D

We could also see Empress Sisi's bedroom. It was interesting to me that her bed was put almost in the middle of the room diagonally (no side touching the walls) and they put a screen on one side to separate it from a bunch of sofas. We were also told that it took three hours each day for her to do her hair. Geezzzz...while somebody did her hair, she was listening to another person reading books from Greek mythology or something like that.

What I didn't know was the tragic life of Sisi. At first Franz Joseph was going to be bethroted to Sisi's sister, but he fell head over heels in love with the young Sisi, so he proposed and she cried buckets upon hearing his proposal. She was never too much involved with the palace affairs 'coz she didn't like all that. Her eldest son killed himself and then she herself was stabbed to death by someone when she went abroad. Poor Franz Joseph was brokenhearted.:-(

Enough of this sad story, though. After visiting all the places, we browsed through the souvenir store and I found a pair of nice earrings. They're the replica of Empress Sisi's star-shaped hair jewellery. Mine is made of silver and Swarovski crystals. Price: €20. Oh hey, here I found Sisi Online Shop in case you wanna see the details.

OK, I'll end this here and continue with our travel diary later.

Dancing Lights

I've been busy due to situations at work, so haven't had time nor energy to do anything much blog-wise, but today I've uploaded some Vienna videos and here are a few chosen ones (to watch more you can just click on my username in youtube).

The first video is a video of dancing lights on a tall building. It's right in front of our hotel window. I had to open the window and sit on the ledge (no balcony) to take this video he he...Every day while we were there this light dances started at 19.30 (7.30 pm) and the pattern kept on changing. That was why it was so interesting to watch it. :-D

The second video is a view of a part of Stephansplatz (the city centre): 

OK, I'm pretty tired right now and R2's getting sick ever since he got back from Vienna (his voice has gotten sexier and he's been coughing and feeling weird, you know)...good thing we were both OK in Vienna, but now I'm starting to feel weird, too. So gonna take some time to rest 'coz my work schedule is getting busier again (summer season is approaching fast!!!). So TAKE CARE to everybody and enjoy the videos!

Vienna Trip: Stephansplatz #1

The second day in Vienna started off sunnily. Before going to Stephansplatz, we went to find an Indonesia foodstore at the opposite direction. I knew I'd want to buy many things from there, so each of us brought a backpack. I had printed the map of the store: Toko Sederhana. It was about 2 km away from our hotel, so we were planning to go there and then back to the hotel to put everything we bought there and then we'd go around Stephansplatz to visit some museums or a church or something like that. 

Here's a pic of us walking back to the hotel from the store...

Here are some views when we walked to Stephansplatz (about 4-5 km away from our hotel). R2 didn't want to use any public transit so we walked there everywhere. 

Our first stop was Mozart's House. Unfortunately I couldn't take pics of the inside of the house but I found a link where you could see some videos/pics of the place: Mozarthaus Vienna.

It was the first time we used that kind of audio guide. So we paid the fee and got two gadgets like rather thick mobile phones and we had to punch in the numbers shown in each room/wall in order to listen to the explanation. We started off from the 3rd storey. The tour went SO long (around 2 hours or more?) that I was REALLY REALLY starving when it was finally finished. Here's a pic of me in front of the entrance:

So right after that we went to find a resto to have lunch ha ha...We didn't really know where to eat, so when we found some place that looked OK with menus on the wall, we just went in. We ended up in Lindenkeller. We had to go down some stairs, so it felt like being in a nicely decorated cellar. The food was OK. It was nice to dine in a place with a different atmosphere (something Sodankylä doesn't have).

R2 had some beer and schnitzel whereas I had goulash and pasta. The goulash was spicy and nice, but I had tasted much better goulash soup in Budapest (I've promised myself that if we go back to Budapest, we HAVE to go to the same resto again just so I can eat the goulash soup!!!) he he he...Here are some pics:

Then we toured around the area. Here's the link to the website if you want to see panoramic photos and read more info: Stephansplatz.We went straight to St. Stephen's Church and bought a ticket to go up to the tower by lift (sorry, didn't feel like walking a few hundred steps to the other tower 'coz we had been walking and we would still be walking for a few days around the city). The ticket cost €4.5/person. It got cloudy at that time and the wind was SOOOOO cold up thereeeeee!!! BRRRRRRRRRRRR...

Anyhow, here are some pics:

  I think this is long enough now, so I'll separate the other photos in another post.

Vienna Trip: Prater

We arrived in Vienna on Sat evening, so we went out right away to find some food 'coz we were starving already. On Sunday because I thought other places may have been closed, we opted to go to the Prater. We were thinking of going to Madame Tussaud's Museum as well as the Giant Ferris Wheel. You can click the link to see the full info on Prater. 

Here we were in front of Prater:

We bought a combo ticket for Madame Tussaud and The Ferris Wheel (cheaper than buying the tickets separately). And inside Madame Tussaud's Museum we took lots of pics, but I'm gonna share some only here...  Me with Hitchcock. When I stepped on the bathtub, I heard a woman's scream and some more sound effects (you know, like in the movie), so it helped me pose like that ha ha....

Me and Kate Winslet:

Was trying to look for Leo's wallet HA HA HA HA HA HA...

Me and Thomas Muster:

R2 and Audrey:

R2 and Einstein. See the machine on the left back of the photo? It quizzes your knowledge by asking you questions (multiple choices) he he...We tried one part (10 questions) and we got 6 right out of 10 he he...

Don't wonder why he looked SO happy. She's his all-time fave actress (in terms of beauty, that is). :-D

And then we went to Ferris Wheel right across the museum (apparently we had to change the tickets we got from Madame Tussaud's Museum before we could queue to get into the Ferris Wheel). We had to scan the barcode part on the new tickets to the scanning machine in order to get in. And inside the place there were old Ferris Wheel carts and inside the carts they put miniatures of different scenes of the Ferris Wheel. Here's a view of one of the carts:

After we looked around at different miniatures in different old carts, we had to queue to be taken pics by their photographer (the scene was like we were inside one of the red Ferris Wheel carts, overlooking Vienna). It wasn't compulsory to buy the pics, but naturally many people did opt to buy a pic or two. They took 4 pics of us with different poses and we bought one for €9.80 (I'll scan the pic later). Then we had to go out and queue to get inside the Ferris Wheel. They also had this kind of dining cart where you could have a nice dinner, but we didn't try that he he...

Here's a pic of R2 inside the cart. I find it a bit annoying that there were two benches in the middle of the cart so it was hard to move around to take pics from different angles 'coz there were so many people PLUS the benches!!! GRRRR!!! But anyway....the cart swayed slightly while going up there, but thankfully not too much - otherwise I would be afraid of getting motion sickness ha ha...

Yep, it was a cloudy day and after going up the Ferris Wheel, it rained lightly but non-stop for a few hours at least and the weather got colder. Here's one view from up the cart:

Another view:

Another view...the building with the red top on the right is the entrance to Madame Tussaud's Museum.

OK, that's all for now and I'll share more pics later. :-D