Vienna

Voted world's most livable city, there is no question why. First and foremost, of all the cities I have visited, this has felt the most secure for a large city. It has quite a lot to offer: history, museums, parks, palaces and palatial gardens, night life and friendly people. Upon checking into the hostel, I met 4 fun and friendly girls from Guadalajara, Mexico, quick to invite me as an honorary group member.

We took a trip to the old town, visited St. Stephan's Cathedral, street performers, grabbed some food from a street vendor and enjoyed teasing eachother. St. Stephan's was very interesting. Knowing that the building would likely sustain damage during WWII, the valuable artifacts and stained glass windows were carefully removed and preserved below for safekeeping. The efforts would not save the original windows. Attacks on surrounding buildings set the roof of the cathedral ablaze and almost all the original windows were destroyed. They are now replaced with cheap glass windows with colored plastic film strewn across it. It makes for a cheap look, but the effect of the sun shining through the plastic makes for dramatic and prismatic effects on the grey interior. The roof of the church, also destroyed, was replaced by a beautiful and colorful tile roof.

There are several palaces within Vienna. The most memorable for me was Schőnbrunn Palace. While we were not able to venture through the 1,441 rooms it offered, we were able to hike up through the palace gardens to the monumental gate which offered a stunning view of the city.

Tuesday night, we joined to make a team of 11 with the hostel employee that took a trip to the city to an electronic club located in an abandoned subway station. It was split in two components, an outdoor relaxation area by the Danube River and an interior dance area. One of Vienna's most infamous underground club, Flex was a fun time, even on a Tuesday.

During our walk home, we saw much of the city that we did not see during the day and got a history lesson from the hostel employee discussing the Parliament, Museum Quarter, Hitler speeches, etc. It was good to get a local perspective of the area.

The next day, after the girls gave farewell hugs I set out alone for awhile. Having the Kindle with the history of the locations has made the experience much more rich than blindly wandering through the cities. I set up in a park near the Hamburg Palace, read more about Vienna and met two more people. One a guy from California, playing guitar to make money and travel Europe, and the other a local female. They both had interesting perspectives on life and humanity which made for more fun conversation.  Questions at hand, why do people come to a city and visit H&M when they are everywhere, and how street graffiti and art can provide lessons on humanity.

I searched for an art scene outside of the museums, but there appears to be little in Vienna proper.

One of my favorites for the day, frozen Greek yogurt gelato with mango swirl in the park!