A Tourist in the City

It is one of my first weekends in Vienna, and I have stepped to see different shades of the city.

It is a sunny Saturday, so me and Nicolas (a colleague from work) have planned for a short hike around Vienna. Frankly, its quite amazing that a city can allow that within its limits. How many others can?

Before I meet Nicolas though, I decide to go and visit the Schönbrunn Palace. It is absolutely beautiful and absolutely massive! Ignoring the insides of the Palace (which presumably has museums) since entry was ticketed, I walk around the compound. The compound is filled with autumnal shades of trees and hedges, and towards the back, I find a huge archway on top of a mound. Within the 10 minutes it takes to climb to the top of the mound, the whole of Vienna becomes visible. It is a breathtaking sight.

Time for a second birds-eye view of the city, from the outskirts of Vienna in Cobenzl. The bus to Cobenzl goes through really nice areas of Vienna – the roads are narrow (so narrow that 2 buses cannot pass each other), and most houses have a front garden. It feels like the Austrian countryside, but actually still within city limits. Cobenzl is indeed crowded. We chance upon a vineyard – apparently Vienna had loads of them, and we would get to have the local wines at a really cute wine garden later.

Hiking in these woods is easy – every trail is mapped and signboards show the way every 10 minutes. Trekking in the Himalayas, it is not. We take the trails that take us away from the crowds, and soon we are walking through thick forest. Civilization reappears every now and then. We also manage to chance upon a watchtower offering amazing 360 degree views of the Viennese landscape (very much like the minarets at Jama Masjid back home in Delhi). The rest of the afternoon is a boozy blur with wine at a Cobenzl wine garden and beer at the Oktoberfest celebrations in Pratersterns.

Sleeping through the morning, I recover to step out in the afternoon towards the centre of the city. Sunday is not the best day to step out to explore the 1st district. It is flooded with tourists on their city walking tours, with their guidebooks and with their cameras. That’s rich coming from me though. I have been trying to capture a typical Viennese landscape on my phone camera – an old-school tram passing by in front of some stunning medieval architecture. An hour later, still no success. It looks great in my head, but my phone and I do not share a telepathic understanding yet.

The traditional coffeehouses are mostly full – most even have a significant number of people waiting outside to get in. People wait patiently for their taste of Vienna, to be a local and not merely a tourist. Eventually I find one myself without a crowd, and how lucky that I am still in the 1st district.

The waitress speaks perfect, accent-free English, perhaps trained and hardened by the hundreds of non-German speakers she encounters everyday. My order is a melange and what the cafe calls an ‘Old Viennese Chocolate Cake’. The melange is (typically?) frothy and the cake has a strong citrus finish. I might be finally starting to tell my coffees apart.