Vienna: Part the Third (Day of Cake)

When I say that this day, our last day in Vienna, was the day of cake, please do not think I'm being melodramatic or over-exaggerating for cakey effect. Understand. It was THE day of cake. All in all Kun-Wei and I split 4 pieces of cake. We each had a Viennese hotdog (see previous post) late in the afternoon but beyond that all we ate was CAKE.

This was because we made the unfortunate mistake of only finding the DELICIOUS cake places on the last day and consequently had to eat ALL THE DELICIOUS CAKE that we could fit into our stomachs in a mere...I dunno...12ish hours?

IF YOU LEARN NOTHING FROM THIS BLOG, PLEASE, LEARN THIS: GO TO CAFE CENTRAL SHOULD YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE IN VIENNA.

And eat all the cake.

Kun-Wei and I started out the morning with this beauty. It was pure chocolatey goodness. It was so decadent that it literally melted in my mouth in a most delightful way. It was...it was pure magic. And a breakfast of champions.

Café Central is this super classy place and the prices were surprisingly reasonable. It wouldn't have mattered. I would have paid too much for a slice of that cake.

It had very lovely light fixtures.

Our next stop was Demel Konditorei. Honestly, Kun-Wei and I probably could have just sat at Café Central all day, stuffing our faces. However, after discovering that bit of delectable magic we decided to see what other deliciousness was out there waiting to be found. This cake was a rich, dense chocolate cake. Basically, I was in heaven. It was so moist and...oh man, I'm salivating just thinking about it.

We walked past a really pretty church (we did a lot of walking that day-had to at least attempt to burn off a few cake calories).

This church happens to be the Church of St. Charles completed in 1737. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles VI, ordered it built and named after his patron saint Charles Borromeo.

I don't know if you can tell or not but it is GORGEOUS.

Our next destination was the Belvedere Palaces. These are two buildings (Upper and Lower Belvedere) that was originally built for Prince Eugene and are now part of a really beautiful art museum.

Belvedere is beautiful enough by itself but it's also filled to the brim with absolutely gorgeous paintings-including Gustav Klimt's very famous "The Kiss."

Awwwww, look at it being all regal and splendid. :)

The gardens were also exquisite. Well-manicured and so cool to see from the upper windows of the art gallery.

It was a VERY windy day.

I don't know why exactly but I think that sphinxes are super cool and the ones at the Belvedere were EXTRA elegant.

I seriously could have used up all the space on my camera on just these gardens. I developed a bit of a fascination with ornate palacey gardens on this trip and my appreciation for gardening rose tenfold. And I started out REALLY liking gardening.

More garden pictures because I couldn't and can't help myself.

Pretty tree! Honestly, I'm pretty sure that Vienna must have one of the highest densities of gorgeous tree populations in the...well, probably in the universe. If I had a dollar for every lovely, flowering tree we passed in our wanderings than I would have consumed a great deal more cake.

After the Belvedere we went and hunted down what we though would be our last piece of cake for the day. This was the least remarkable of the lot but it was still pretty good. We got it at Café Sacher. It was a slice of the famous Sachertorte-apricot and chocolate cake. The apricot flavour was lovely but the cake was a bit dry.

We passed the Lipizzaner Riding School on our way back through Vienna. I fangirled out a little bit over the horses. A Lipizzaner show would have been INSANELY expensive but I guess seeing the curious faces of a couple of stunning horses is the next best thing...right?

To end the day, Kun-Wei and I made our way back to our favorite spot of the day: Café Central. There we spent an absurd amount of time dithering over the dessert display, trying to justify buying a slice of everything or maybe narrow down our choices a bit. Finally, Kun-Wei was decisive for us and lobbied successfully for the creme brulee cake. It was not hard to convince me that it would be a good choice.

Now, to understand how absolutely perfect this gorgeous morsel was let me walk you through it. The outer layer was a rich, very smooth chocolate ganache that I probably would have drunk out of a cup had it been offered to me. Sure, it would've given me instant diabetes and the sugar rush of the century, but damn, it was just so good. It's a good thing the cup wasn't offered. the inner part was a light chocolate cake that was so moist and soft and perfect that you almost wouldn't have know it was there if it weren't for the sublime flavour. It's like chocolate cake and mousse had a baby and then that baby was fed entirely on awesomeness steroids. It melted the instant it hit my tongue and was just...it was SO GOOD. And of course, the center was creme brulee and creme brulee is usually to die for but this was beyond anything I've ever tasted. Oh my goodness.

Needless to say, that was the perfect end to a pretty excellent day. Is it terrible that I would go back to Vienna just for the cake? I don't care. I would go back to Vienna in a heartbeat for the cake. Also for the other amazing stuff, but I would know deep down what it was all about.

I'm sorry if this wasn't terribly logical or coherent, I got SUPER distracted reliving the cake memories.

Mmmmmmmm...

Much love and cheers!

Vienna: Part the Second (In Which Kun-Wei and I Get Cultured)

I'm back in Claremont! And, uh, I just remembered to update this more...so...yeah...sorry.

The next day, Kun-Wei and I got the breakfast of champions before setting out for more adventuring.

We went to Schönbrunn Palace! It was the home of the Habsburgs, Rulers of Austria.

I don't know how obvious it is from the pictures but the palace is HUGE. Seriously, it's SO HUGE. The hugest! And the palace grounds...ENORMOUS. Almost beyond enormous.

Also, it's exterior was a sunny yellow which made me really happy. :D

Ok, so, the lightposts in Europe were so cool. They were all far more ornate than they had any business being and each had it's own...distinct personality. I don't know if that made any sense but I got a little bit obsessed.

I'm going to kidnap a troupe of palace gardeners and then politely ask them to create a comparable garden for me in my non-existant lawn. The flowers were SO PRETTY.

And well ordered. I like a more wild (or effortless looking) approach to nature and gardening but day-UM, the perfectly manicured lawns and flower beds had their appeal.

Petunia Dursley would be impressed.

They had pathways covered with vines and defined by lovely hedges.

And statues! Statues are the best.

This is the back of Schönbrunn Palace. It's just as epic as the front.

This is but a portion of the palace grounds. I would love to just stroll around for days and days. Alas, we only had a couple of hours.

This is the view from the back of the palace. Seriously, can you imagine waking up to that? Can you? CAN YOU? I'm insanely jealous right now. Even though I know what happened to Marie Antoinette.

More palace pictures!

This giant fountain before the gorgeous hill.

I love flowers.

The palace from far away!

The fountain up close! Rearing horses, men with weapons, it's really got everything a fountain should have.

Kun-Wei and I blocking the palace! Any picture we have of the two of us is the result of Kun-Wei being WAY more awesome and ballsy than I. She approached people and politely asked them to take a picture while I wrung my hands and obsessed about being a terrible burden on society.

We decided to try hiking up the hill a bit. The view was awesome. The hill was...less so. I mean, it was beautiful, but it got tiring about halfway up.

I still managed to smile though. :) It's hard not to when you're surrounded by so much excellent scenery.

We made it to the top of the hill and saw this thing! There was a super classy restaurant/café, but it was crazy expensive. Oh well.

The palace from the top of the hill! And all the people walking up/down it.

I LOVED the Viennese architecture. I think it may have been my favorite. Nowhere epitomized this elegance like Schönbrunn.

I really liked Schönbrunn, ok??

Ok, this statue was really creepy. I don't know how clear it is in the picture but the armor was being worn by...nothing. It was a statue of armor being...displayed? It kind of just looked like a faceless person. Like whoever had owned the armor had gone up against Koh and accidentally showed emotion. Do you get that reference? If yes, you're awesome. If not, I still probably love you. Maybe.

Kun-Wei and I in the park!

THE COOLEST SQUIRREL I'VE EVER SEEN. It was black with these incredible tufts of fur at the tips of their ears and rather surprising speed. Also, they weren't morbidly obese like the squirrels in Claremont.

This was a reddish AWESOME squirrel approaching some strangers. Taking a picture of stranger's feet because you want a picture of the squirrel is...a little scary. But I took my years of creeper practice and put them to good use. :D

FOUNTAIN. It's another fountain! In a pool! These will NEVER get old. NEVER.

I loved the tree-lined paths. I wanted to get lost in them. I thought a lot about all of my favorite fairytales and fairytale-like books from my childhood, I don't think it's terribly hard to see why. I read some when I got home. :)

FOUNTAIN.

Greenhouse!

These walkways are SO COOL. SO COOOOOOOOOOL.

Ok, this was one of my favorite things at the palace. It's the perfect color and really pretty and just wonderful wonderful wonderful.

The side of the palace!

Apparently the blue structure wasn't awesome enough so they had to add a totally excellent ceiling. It's fantastic.

Me and my favorite structure!

This picture is for Sameera. I saw this sign and my heart positively leapt. And then I noticed the apostrophe.

Ok, so, Kun-Wei and I found these hotdogs on the street when we were looking for a quick bite and they were SO DELICIOUS. The vender took a baguette, cut off the top, speared it on this hotdog size rod with a pointy tip, squirted in a bit of ketchup and mustard and then put in a delicious Viennese bratwurst. It was incredible. And I don't really like hotdogs.

Pigeon friend with beautiful markings!

Cake! We ate a lot of cake in Vienna.

That night we went to the opera. We went to the Viennese Opera House and waited for 2 hours to purchase €4 standing tickets to Madame Butterfly. Basically, it was the coolest thing ever.

We got standing room in the front and center section of the standing room area which was at the back of the theatre.

The Opera House was AWESOME.

Look at that ceiling. Stunning. Totally stunning.

I was really into the ceilings...ummm...they were really cool so...yeah...

AWESOME LIGHT FIXTURE.

Oh dear. My family has done too much remodeling.

I can't imagine what it would be like watching an opera in one of the boxes. They made me think of Anastasia. Man, that's a great movie.

View from the roof of the Opera House!

More views from the roof of the Opera House!

Me on the roof of the Opera House! In my super classy shoes.

The door that led to the roof of the Opera House!

A horse statue on the roof of the Opera House!

View of the Opera House from the roof of the Opera House!

More views from the roof. :)

I really wish I had been able to take a picture of the set of Madame Butterfly. It was breathtaking.

Grand stairs!

More ceiling shots. :P

Ha ha, and you thought I was done...

Standing for three hours was admittedly rather painful but I didn't notice it for most of the opera. There was a translator screen thing so I was actually able to understand what they were singing. Of course, that just made me crazy sad because the opera is all about this Japanese woman who marries and then is left by an American military man and then waits and waits and waits for him to return to her. Google it, if you aren't familiar.

After that we were completely exhausted and went back to the hostel and passed out.

Overall, it was an EXCELLENT day. :)

Much love and cheers!