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When planning where we would visit in our travels en-route to London, destinations in Europe were not initially considered. We figured it would soon enough be on our doorstep waiting for us to explore at a later date. However, after we visited the travel agent and found out that our cheapest option was an airfare offered by Austrian Airlines, it seemed rude not to include a stopover in the airlines homeland.

After a grueling eight-hour flight (surprisingly the hardest leg in our journey thus far) we descended through the clouds to reveal Austria below us. The landscape, very much reminded me of a fairytale setting with perfectly defined woods and lovingly tended and perfectly green fields giving way to perfect little towns huddled up closely to breathtaking churches, in pride of place in the very centre of town.

After the hustle and bustle of the American airports we had spent so much time in over the previous week, Vienna airport was surprisingly easy to negotiate and as an added bonus for Aaron, with his newly acquired i-Pad, it even offered free wi-fi. Another culture shock came when we took the taxi to the hotel, where the driver was very amicable carrying our bags both to the car and then into the hotel at the other end with no expectation of tip. The hotel was also very accommodating to us poor jet-lagged souls, checking us in several hours before the official check in time, without us having made prior arrangements for them to do so.

After New York, our room seemed to be of palatial proportions, so much so that I think the bathroom in Vienna was only marginally smaller than our entire room in New York. The hotel was lovely and boarded onto a massive pedestrian square which had loads of beautiful buildings, cafes, bars and gorgeous shops to explore. I was in heaven.

Our wonderfully obliging hotel

Day one was spent largely in a state of slumber, as we caught up on the sleep which had alluded us while flying. I forced myself awake before dinner-time in a bid to change my body clock onto local time asap. After I had bullied Aaron from his rather deep sleep, we enjoyed a lovely authentic Italian meal at a place not far from the hotel. When the bill arrived we were pleasantly surprised to find it substantially cheaper than we had anticipated. Having spent a fortune on our accommodation when booking from New Zealand we were happy to find the cheap to eat and drink trend continued for our entire stay.

After a slightly broken sleep, where jet-lag made a mockery of local time our second day was exploring the plaza and shopping areas around our hotel. We were pleasantly surprised to find that there was a festival going on for the local cathedral the Stephansdom. Near to the church there were little street vendors selling really yummy food (pretzels and bratwurst anyone), as well as street performers and a gorgeous steam operated carousel.

The Stephansdom (and Austrian scaffolding!)

Pretzels, Bratwurst and Bier

We spent a great deal of time walking in and around Stephansplatz (the square onto which the cathedral opens) during our time in Vienna, stopping fairly frequently for coffee, which was good and strong, at one of the many outdoor cafe areas. We also may have met our friendly bar tender who was impressed with my ordering a half yard glass of beer and who later photo-bombed a picture of us. We did return to this bar the following night, this time for both dinner and drinks.

Photo bombing moment

Enjoying a decent coffee in the sunshine

By the third day thanks to my stubborness with fooling my body into local time, I was feeling good and ready to explore the museums dotted around the city. Most of which were located ridiculously close to our hotel seeing we were staying in what is know as the Museum Quarter. First up we looked through the Albertina, which was once a Palace and now mostly an art museum. We had missed the Andy Warhol exhibit by two days much to my disappointment but it was good to have a nosy nonetheless. After the Albertina we grabbed a coffee and a strudel from one of the local cafes. Here is where we ran into our only translation mishap, with a waitress who could speak English embarrassingly enough, where instead of ordering the cherry strudel we ended up asking for the milk curd one instead. Apparently it was as tasty as it sounds - I wasn't brave enough to try it, electing to buy a third strudel in the correct flavour. After this Aaron succumbed to his jetlag so I wandered around and even managed to order a bratwurst from a street vendor using a combination of butchered German (me), well spoken English (the vendor) and over the top improvised sign language (me again).

The scene of our ordering disaster

Our fourth day saw us do the zoo and MOTAT Vienna style with a trip to the world's oldest zoo (which originated as the back garden of the Schoenbrunn palace) followed by a visit to the Viennese Museum of Technology. The walk to the zoo was beautiful and the newer parts of the zoo were really well done, the older enclosures which were clearly part of the original zoo, made me sad for the animals in them. For the record, the giraffes, Giant panda and hippos all drew the short straw for the original caged enclosures. The technology museum was also loads of fun and quite impressive. Unfortunately by the time we got to the level with all the fun cars and motorbikes we were a little museumed out so didn't spend as much time as we would have liked here.

The walk to the zoo through the Palace gardens

The closest we came to spotting the Giant Panda
Vienna MOTAT

Aaron with the bike he suspects he was named after - the AJS

All in all, Vienna was lovely. I whiled away the hours just wandering around the central square. We didn't explore nearly as much as we should. We discovered a lovely marketplace in the bottom of a swanky mall and had our faith restored in the service industry. After the whirlwind adventures we had crammed into the US leg of a trip, Vienna was a nice little holiday at a completely different pace. It was a beautiful way to introduce us to Europe and it meant by the time we made it to London, a mere two hour flight away and a one hour time-difference, we had already conquered our jetlag and were ready to conquer the next stage of our adventures.