Vienna - Day One

Larry had a 3 day weekend so we decided to hit the road. We woke up Saturday morning and headed to Vienna, Austria. The drive there was super easy - just under 3 hours on one highway. Other than a bunch of windmills, the landscape along the way didn't look much different than it does on Texas highways. Hungary is part of the EU, so you don't even have to stop at the border of Austria. We were about 45 minutes from Vienna when we saw a giant outlet mall. I saw a Crocs sign, and Chelsea needed some shoes, so we decided to stop. It was cold and the parking lot was overflowing, but we found a spot and headed to the Crocs store. Along the way, we passed a lot of great stores and heard lots of English spoken. Music to my ears! We got Chelsea's shoes and headed on, but I'm sure we will visit again some day!

We arrived in Vienna and found our hotel after only a couple of wrong turns. The troops were hungry and it was time for lunch. We couldn't find a restaurant that took credit cards, and we hadn't gotten any Euros (Hungary uses the forint). We roamed until we found an ATM, got money, and went back to eat. By now, everyone was a little grouchy. I decided I was going to write a book entitled "Europe with Small Children". The contents of the book would simply say: Don't do it.

After lunch, everyone was happier and I was feeling more optimistic about the trip. We checked into the Marriott Courtyard. Ahh - an American hotel. English. Perfect. We planned to let Cade take a nap, but he was ready to party. We scrapped the nap and headed out, quickly realizing that we needed to switch our brains from Hungarian to German.

Vienna has a great subway system. We got directions from the hotel and took the subway to the city center. The man told us to walk straight after we got off the subway. We roamed for awhile and finally gave in and consulted google maps after we couldn't find ourselves on the paper map. Apparently, my "straight" was different than the hotel man's straight.

Our destination was St. Stephens Cathedral and Hofburg Palace, with an ice cream stop at the famous Zanoni and Zanoni in between.

These were the first two sights we came upon- guess which one Chelsea wanted to stop at?

After a while, we made it to St. Stephens.

We walked in briefly, but didn't take a tour. It is a gorgeous cathedral that has existed for hundreds of years. Mozart was married and buried here.

Zononi and Zanoni was down the street. It was really cold outside, and they have no indoor seating. Poor Chelsea was shivering but wouldn't put down the ice cream! It was yummy!

Freezing but must eat ice cream!

We passed many high end shops and then came upon Hofburg Palace.

Hofburg Palace formerly housed kings and rulers, most famously the Hapsburgs. Currently, it is home to the Austrian president. There are many museums here with all sorts of imperial treasures, but we will save those for another time! Our little people have no interest in that!

Day one concluded with dinner at a "too fancy for our children, but daddy doesn't want McDonald's" restaurant. We all survived it and had a good nights sleep, ready to visit Schonbrunn palace and the zoo the next morning. Stay tuned for day two....