We took a direct train to Vienna, the capital of Austria and reached Vienna after a few hours of train ride from Prague. We checked in to Hotel Praterstern - the BEST hotel that we had stayed throughout the trip in Europe!! Anyway, it had to be the best, as it is literally the only HOTEL we had stayed; we stayed in youth hostels previously.

The historic centre of Vienna is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. St Stephen’s Cathedral is just a walking distance away from our hotel. It is a Romanesque and Gothic styles cathedral and is the most important religious building in Vienna.

The other side of St Stephen’s Cathedral.

Vienna is so different from the other states that we had visited in Austria earlier on. It is like Paris; it has plenty of boutiques and shoppers. There are also more Asians. Many buskers could sing classical soprano very well too! The people could speak good English and more helpful and friendlier too.

The shopping lane in the city centre seemed to me like the one in Nanjing Street, Shanghai. And the city centre was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We had an enjoyable time savouring delicious Austrian pastries, ice-creams and sausages. Of course, they were no longer as cheap as those in Prague. Everything was back to double. Ouch! :(

And plenty of Mozart Chocolate Balls…

Exploring the city by foot…

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We visited Schönbrunn Palace, the best palace we had seen in Austria so far. Its surrounding buildings and the huge park is one of the most significant cultural monuments in Austria. The palace served as summer residence to various Habsburg rulers. Schönbrunn Palace is so big that part of it is a hunting and recreation ground. It was a tiring walk up the hill to take this photo. The view is great.

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At the Opera House (Wiener Staatsoper) ticket counter, we checked out the schedule for the opera of the day. Everyone has been saying we must visit the Opera House for an opera in Vienna, it’s world famous for operas. The ticket officer was very helpful. He recommended us some of the performances and from him, we knew that students can watch certain performances for free! How fortunate! No wonder they are cultivated since young to appreciate classical music and arts.

We couldn’t watch for free since we were no longer young school kids. The ticket officer highly recommended an opera called “TOSCA” to us. It was a Category A (Best) Opera and all tickets were already sold out. But we could queue up for the standing gallery tickets, on a first-come-first-served basis. The ticket officer suggested that we could queue up one and a half hour earlier before the opera started.

The queue had already started by the time we joined in. A Japanese man in his fifties was queuing behind us. We lined up for about one and a half hour and luckily, there were still tickets left and we finally bought our tickets. The ticket was cheap - €3.50 only for a world class performance in a world class opera house! But it came with no seat.

There are a few entrance doors to the standing gallery. We had to think and act fast as people who got the tickets were rushing into the standing gallery. The Japanese man who was behind us was already running ahead of us at the entrance to grab the best view of the stage! We were not bad either, we had a good standing view.

The interior of the Opera House is so elegant like a palace.

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During our final stay in Vienna, we visited The Prater, Vienna’s most popular fun fair with a giant Ferris wheel and many rides.

First time to see such a slow-moving “merry-go-round” with real ponies. Cute.

The Prater is small and old, yet colourful.

The Hundertwasser House is a funny looking apartment with large trees growing from inside the rooms, with limbs extending from windows. The house was designed by an Austrian artist at no charge.

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