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If you want to catch some Opera and you're there overnight, you can usually pick up "standing room" tickets to whatever Opera they're showing that night for very little money (used to be less than 10Euros). Good to experience if you don't want to just tick the box to say you've done it, but don't want to sit through the whole thing (we happened to pick a night when there was a run of Don Carlos, which just so happens to be one of the longest Operas ever apparently!).
If I had a day to see stuff, I'd start by getting the Ubahn straight to Stephansplatz - that's right in the centre, nice cathedral and a busy square with loads of roads off it. Just wandering about around there can be pretty good in general. But I'd go down the street named Graben, left at the end down Kohlgasse and you'll reach the Hofburg - the old imperial court. Big squares, lovely old buildings, museums are good too. Good taste of old imperial Vienna.
From there you've got the Inner Ring Road, which is a lovely walk in itself. The Rathaus (city hall) is impressive, then you've also got the Parliament building, a couple of nice theatres, down to the brilliant opera house. As joneve said you can get cheap standing tickets for the Opera if you fancy that, but there's a queue so find out the times you need to be there.
Near the Opera there's the secession building, which was my favourite. A stunning gold dome that looks amazing if you're there in sunshine. And also the Stadtpark which is a fairly unremarkable but nice enough park, but has some brilliant statues in, including the gold Johann Strauss memorial.
If you are going for art, then the Albertina is great, and Belvedere has lots of Klimt including The Kiss and I think a fair bit of Kakoshka as well. Bit further out mind you
Stuff to avoid:
- Karlsplatz - nice church but full of vagrants and I never felt very safe around there
- The concerts they try to sell you on the street - they are ok but not amazing, and you'll probably pay over the odds for them.
- Prater Park at night. Unless you're into, erm, illicit encounters
Not sure if you're there for the evening, but thought I'd recommend food and drink related stuff anyway cos I like to reminisce:
- If you like cheese, try a Kasekrainer hot dog. Amazing cheese laced hot dog in a roll, delicious.
- Ideally eating dinner gets cheaper the further outside of the 1st district (within the ring road) you get. But you may not have time for that.
- My favourite restaurant was a bizarre place that serves all the types of food you can imagine, in pancakes. http://palatschinkenkuchl.wien/ is the place, quite central by the cathedral. Try their Kaiserschmarrn which is like scrambled pancakes with sugar and jam.
- Cafe Oberlaa is best for cakes
- If you want a nice (albeit expensive) cocktail bar, Nightflys in Dorotheregass by Stephansplatz is a very cool Rat Pack themed cellar type bar, where yours truly used to play jazz piano when I lived there. The best cocktails, an amazing collection of expensive whisky, they are also big into cigars if that's your thing. Lovely bar especially now they have separate smoking & non-smoking areas (separated by glass doors, don't walk into them)
- Sachertorte (chocolate cake with apricot jam) is very nice but expensive from Hotel Sacher and there's a queue. If you want to try it, they'll have it in any cake shop.
- Try a proper Wiener Melange coffee if you can, lovely mocha type coffee
Handy Tips:
- Don't expect the Viennese to be overly friendly, especially if they are serving you in a restaurant or bar. They aren't all that keen on foreigners
- It's not very big so if you can avoid the underground, it's better as you'll see more and save money (although the underground is embarrassingly cheap compared to TFL prices).
- You'll get a lot of people walking straight into you. I used to think it was pickpockets but it wasn't, people there will literally walk from A to B with no regard for who is in the way - diverting to avoid somebody just doesn't seem to enter their heads at any point. They are very direct in every sense, but quite literally in the case of getting from where they are to where they want to be. There's no polite apologising and wry giggling at it like you would here, they'll just walk straight through you
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The riding was leisurely, to say the least, but we saw way more of the city in that time than we could have any other way.
We did it in the morning, which left the afternoon free to explore the bits we liked best in more detail.
https://www.hotrod-tour-wien.com/homewien/seite124/
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Be careful with your phone and wallet. My BJJ instructor was there recently and on two separate occasions somebody tried to steal his phone. I don't think it went particularly well for the robber on either occasion!
Oh and at risk of sounding a bit Basil Fawlty - do NOT mention the war at any point, under any circumstances
soundcloud.com/thecolourbox-1
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Thanks for all the replies and a special thank you to Thecolourbox , great stuff.
I'll be sure to check out http://palatschinkenkuchl.wien/ "scrambled pancakes with sugar and jam" sounds like a winner.
Re the Kaiserchmarrn - yes do it, definitely do it. Apparently Franz Joseph I's favourite dessert, very tasty
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Good shout that. One of the best parts of coffee stops when skiing in Austria!