Okay, okay. I know travelogues aren’t really the most fun types of posts to read, and they often come across as, “I’ve been to this really cool place and you haven’t.” However, despite my awareness of this, I’m going to do just that today. I went to Vienna, Austria, a few weeks ago to present my research on the female inventor of the dishwasher at the European Social Science History Conference. While I was there, I did a lot of sightseeing and eating. This post is mostly about those two things.
Our first day there (I went with my Dad and his partner), we walked around Vienna and oriented ourselves to the city. We rode one of those tacky and gigantic tourist buses that go around in a circle with headphones telling you all about the major landmarks.
After that, we got off at the Stephen’s Dome Cathedral and planned to climb some 300 stairs to the top of the tower. Just as we were getting ready to do so, my dad realized that he no longer had his camera!
The camera was still on the sightseeing bus, so I suggested that we run and meet it at the next major stop, which was at the Opera House. I ran there with my dad not far behind. I kept telling him to let me go alone and that I wouldn’t get lost. But he kept up. We got there, caught the bus, and found the camera. And then we walked all the way back to the cathedral, climbed all 300 stairs up and down, and then almost died of exhaustion.
European vacations usually require a lot of walking and not much laying on the beach and sipping limonadas, so we had used up our week’s worth of energy in that morning. The next day, we were sore and tired. My knee hurt and I started walking with a limp. But I got to rest it later in the week, and it started to feel better.
But we saw so much in the city, even as out-of-shape Americans. We visited Freud’s house, Mozart’s house, the Museum Quartier, Schönbrunn Palace, Belvedere Palace, the Naschmarkt, Vienna University (where I presented my paper), the Rathaus, the Jewish Quarter, The Hofburg Palace Complex, the Royal Treasury, the Spanish Riding School, and every single café and pastry shop along the way.
No, I’m exaggerating about visiting every café and pastry shop. There were too many to choose from, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that we ate dessert twice a day. It was hard to resist having it with lunch and dinner since it stares you in the face from a glass case at the front of every café. You walk in and the first thing you see are Mozart bombes, truffle tortes, apple strudels, Sachertortes, etc. etc. On the last day, I decided that we should’ve planned a month-long trip just so we could have a chance to try every kind of dessert before we left the country.
