For our first extended travel weekend, a large group of us decided to travel to Vienna, Austria. This was our first time traveling by plane in our time at CIMBA. We were able to rent a bus to take us all to the airport which was very convenient. Our flight was in the early afternoon, but we allowed plenty of time to get to the airport and relax before our flight. Luckily, Venice Marco Polo is a relatively small airport so the lines were short, but I’d recommend getting there at least an hour before just to be safe. We decided to all fly Austrian Airlines which was really nice for the price point. The flight was a little longer than an hour with stunning views of the mountains.
As we arrived, we realized that we accidentally booked the taxi for Sunday instead of Friday. These kinds of things will most likely happen while traveling abroad but it is extremely important to stay calm and look for the next best option. For us it was the train; which ended up being a lot cheaper. We then walked throughout the city from the train station and tried one of their famous bratwurst sausages. Immediately once we arrived, it started raining, and it rained really hard. We were all walking with our travel backpacks getting soaked in the cold. It was one of those moments where typically it would have been upsetting but everyone was super positive and uplifting so we just had fun with it. Walking around the wind was so strong so, to get out of the weather, we decided to have lunch at Le Burger. We later found out it was one of the top recommended restaurants in the city. Le Burger had a sauce bar to try different sauces for your burgers and fries. It was really fun to taste test them all and decide which we liked best.
We were able to explore the Schonbrunn Palace which was one of the top things to do in Vienna. There were beautiful gardens outside of a massive palace. We bought tickets to go inside which were filled with precious art. There was a corner to turn to see more art that I had missed; luckily one of the girls on the trip pointed it out so we went to go look around. As we turned the corner, the painting of Napoleon on the Horse was on display right in front of us. We all turned to each other in shock of what we were seeing. We all had no idea that the painting was at this palace and was such a pleasant surprise. We took many pictures in the museum and had lots of fun experiencing the history within. Since the palace was pretty far from our Airbnb, we decided to take the trolly back. Getting on the trolly was one of the things that we wanted to experience on our trip. It was so fun to look out the window commenting on all the beautiful buildings and activities outside.
For dinner that night, we decided to go to an authentic Austrian restaurant. I really wasn’t sure what to expect, but the food was very similar to German. Everything we ordered was fantastic. This was definitely our favorite meal in Vienna and would definitely recommend trying it if you get the opportunity. We got gelato after the restaurant and as we left the gelato place, it started to snow. It was the weirdest experience in the snow I have ever seen. It wasn’t very cold outside and when you touched the snow to make snowballs it didn’t make your hands cold or wet. We were all shocked at the snow and laughed a lot about it. We decided to join the locals in having a snowball fight in the streets which was the highlight of the night. We laughed so hard trying to dodge the snowballs. The next morning, we made our way back to the airport to catch our flight back to Venice. Even though the weather definitely could have been better, we all made the best of our situation and had a blast.