Day 3 – Exploring Vienna

This morning, when we woke up, we had the most delicious, amazing, bestest breakfast ever at our hotel. I had some chocolate cake that had a hint of berry flavor, a chocolate cereal, which was very hard, but eventually softened in my milk, a hard-boiled egg, and some sausage.

Stadttempel (City Temple) Synagogue

Next, we went to the Stadttempel (City Temple) Synagogue, where my great-grandfather, Felix, had his bar mitzvah when he was a kid growing up in Vienna. We took a tour because it was the only way to see it. It felt very surreal to me to be in a place where a person I have heard so many stories about, but I have never met, used to go. I saw my great-great grandparents’ names (Risa and Rudolph Bauer) in the memorial to all of the Viennese Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. I enjoyed seeing the synagogue and learning more about the history of Jews in Vienna.

After that, we went to a candy store that had gummies, and the guy working there kept giving us free samples, and he would not stop, and he sounded offended when we didn’t want anymore, but we couldn’t eat anymore! Kate and I bought a bag of mushroom-shaped gummies together – it was 500grams/1.1lbs for only 6.5 Euros!

We walked to lunch at a kebab shop. Kate and I split a chicken schnitzel sandwich and pommes frites (French fries!)

St. Stephen’s Cathedral

Our next stop was St. Stephen’s Cathedral, and I really wanted to go into the tower when the bell was ringing, but we were too late. There was an elevator for one tower, but we climbed the other one that went higher. It was 343 steps up a tiny spiral, stone staircase. It was hard to get up while other people squeezing on their way down. There was a beautiful view of Vienna in all directions from the top. We sat at the windows with the wind blowing in our hair, and it felt really nice because we were hot and sweaty from the climb.

We walked to the Opera House, but there wasn’t much to do there without taking a tour, so we left. As we were walking there, we passed another candy shop, so naturally we stopped there and I bought a tiny thing of candy, and it was super-overpriced, but super-delicious.

By this time, everyone was tired, so we got gelato and Dubai chocolate and went back to rest at the Airbnb. The Dubai chocolate was super-delish, and Kate and I made plans to make it when we get back home.

Upper Belvedere Palace

After our rest, we went to a Museum that was once a palace (Upper Belvedere Palace), and we saw a piece of art my mom really wanted to see, The Kiss by Gustav Klimt, and a bunch of other art.

My favorite piece was a shriveled-up turkey man that was being sniffed by a dog.

Then we went into a bright, big room where the roof looked very 3D, but it was just painted. Some parts fooled me!

When the museum closed, we walked through the gardens outside. It was really pretty.

We had dinner around the corner at a beer hall, Salm Brau. I had some soup because my stomach didn’t feel great. The noodles tasted like bread. I didn’t love the noodles, but the soup was super-sigma. I tried a bit of everyone else’s food, and then had three small scoops of ice cream with whipped cream and chocolate drizzled on the side for dessert.

After a long day, we walked home, and I crashed on my bed!