Wandering around Vienna
Ever since I was a little kid, I was fascinated by the Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert and always used to watch the concert on TV, wishing I could be there, taking in the classic music brought by the world's finest and the breathtaking surroundings. Until now, I've never been able to get my hands on tickets for the concert, as it's incredibly hard to get those, but I did manage to go to Vienna and enjoy a concert at the Musikverein in the one and only Goldener Saal where the New Year's Concert is held.
We booked our tickets through LEVEL, a quite new airline with very interesting prices, and arrived in Vienna on Friday night. I found an amazing hotel in the Belvedere area called Hotel Daniel, the place for astute travellers and urbanites as their website states. Location was great, the rooms stylish with big comfy beds and the breakfast was the best, if you stay here, go full-on and book breakfast with it.
The only thing we couldn't have planned in advance was the horrific weather; it literally rained all weekend long, and not just a little drizzle - it rained full-on cats and dogs. But on a bright side, we were even happier to be staying at Hotel Daniel with its big fluffy beds and have a lie in on Saturday before we had the most amazing brunch (with bubbles!).
As we were staying right next to the Belvedere castle, this was the first site we visited on Saturday morning, as well as its gorgeous gardens under the first and only ray of sunshine we saw that weekend. We didn't visit the museum inside the palace as there was quite a queue and we still had many more things to see, but the day I go back to Vienna, I'll definitely go inside Belvedere to see among others The Kiss by Klimt, one of my favourite works of art.
After Belvedere we continued our walk through the city, and wandered around the city centre and its beautiful Art Deco architecture, had a drink at Klimt Café, and then had to cut off our walk to hide from the downpour in Steffl Department Store. Turns out there's a fancy bar hidden inside the mall, which was the perfect place to flop down in a comfortable armchair after a tiring walking and shopping session!
The highlight of our trip was definitely Saturday night, to see the Vienna Mozart Orchestra in the famous Golden Hall of the Musikverein. This was a dream come true for me, and my boyfriend and I were beyond impressed by the music, the architecture and everything surrounding it. An astonishing experience that you can't miss while you're in town! The orchestra brought some of Mozart's finest, as well as epic Strauss sounds, making it the perfect concert in the city where classical music was born.
As I've mentioned before, the weather was quite rubbish, so on Sunday after our lie in, we headed down for breakfast (well, brunch by that time) and enjoyed the fresh eggs, bacon, porridge, fruit, and many other things, as well as sekt. After brunch we went into town again, this time around Stephansplatz, and went for a cheeky right-after-lunch cocktail at the Onyx Bar, a bar with the most beautiful design (lavender chairs for the win), delicious cocktails and an amazing view over Vienna. A must-go when you're in town!
We flew back home very happy from our very first trip to Austria and are eager to discover more of the country, especially Salzburg is very high on my to visit list – hoping to be able to travel there soon to have another taste of this beautiful country!
