Trip to Vienna. Part 1.

For variety’s sake, I spent the entire week not on leisure trips but on business meetings. I flew to Munich, rented a car at the airport, and headed to the small town of Monheim, located 100 kilometers north of the city. There, only 2,000 people live, and there is only one restaurant—actually, it’s a pizzeria... There are no hotels, so I stayed in the neighboring village of Wemding, which has twice as many inhabitants.

It’s a very small and quiet town where people don’t even lock their doors at night:

Nevertheless, the town has a large and impressive church:

But even in such an idyllic place, emergencies can happen. One morning, when I left the hotel, I saw a broken propaganda booth:

I really liked the sculpture in front of the Raiffeisen Bank building—someone had placed half a loaf of bread in the woman’s folded arms… Apparently, they were dealing with some kind of crisis...

I spent two nights there, and my next destination was Vienna, which I visit quite often. In fact, I plan to come here again in a week:

Along the way, I stopped several times to take pictures of the local scenery:

The fog was fascinating—it hung about a meter above the ground, dividing the trees and the village in two:

Eventually, the fog cleared, but the weather turned terrible, and the road to Vienna was dull and gray:

I last visited Vienna last year. As I mentioned before, I always do a particular routine when I’m there. I start my walk from the Vienna Opera House and head along the pedestrian street Kärntner Straße towards St. Stephen’s Cathedral:

It’s a very wide pedestrian street, lined with shops on both sides:

Halfway to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, there’s a snack bar called Nordsee:

It’s a German fast-food chain that is also found in Austria, the Czech Republic, Romania, and Switzerland. Usually, we have to go on vacation by the sea to eat fresh seafood… But Germans and Austrians don’t need to do that—they can get everything fresh right here. Nordsee is truly a “kingdom of seafood”:

Oh, where else can you get such delicious snacks so quickly?

Sometimes you encounter funny people on Kärntner Straße. For example, this girl was walking around with a “crown” on her head… It reminded me of an old joke: In Ukraine, a little boy and his grandmother were waiting at the bus stop. The boy wore a nightgown on his head—they were going to the hospital to remove it. The boy kept asking, “Grandma, am I a prince or a king?” To which his grandmother angrily replied, “You little jerk!”

Vienna has many iconic symbols: Viennese schnitzel, the Vienna Opera House, Sachertorte… and, of course, Mozart’s chocolates. These souvenirs are sold everywhere, but if you forget to buy them, they seem to follow you even to the airport:

The street leads to a large square with St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the middle:

Inside the cathedral, there’s the magnificent throne of the archbishop of Austria—made from a single piece of stone, with intricate carvings:

I have a habit: whenever I travel, I try to climb somewhere high to get a panoramic view of the surroundings. I remember once, when I first visited Vienna, I climbed the tower of this cathedral… I had been wearing a suit and tie all day during meetings. In addition to my 10 kilograms of photography equipment, I also carried several kilograms of samples of local products in my backpack. So there I was, all dressed up, with my backpack on my back, and I saw a small sign saying that you could climb the tower. It promised an amazing view of the city… Of course, I went for it. I bought a ticket and started climbing. I had seen many spiral staircases in my life, but none as narrow as this one. I couldn’t walk straight up because my shoulders kept hitting the walls; I had to climb at an angle. Often, two people climbed up or down at the same time. Since my backpack made me wider than I was tall, I had to stop every few steps, take off my backpack, and climb sideways. People going down had to squeeze past me, pressing against me as much as possible… Unfortunately, young girls rarely bother climbing the tower of St. Stephen’s Cathedral; mostly, it’s elderly men I meet there… When I finally reached the top, I realized that I could take my shirt to the laundry right on the observation deck… But then came the biggest surprise: there was no observation deck at all! There was just a tiny room with filthy windows, densely covered in tiny mesh screens. I’ll never forget how disappointed I was… After that, I had to climb down again… but let’s not dwell on that sad part:

Around St. Stephen’s Cathedral, you can always take a fiacre and tour the narrow streets of old Vienna:

To be honest, before traveling to Vienna, I thought I wouldn’t write anything about it at all—so much has already been written about it. But I took so many photos and had so many things to share that I ended up splitting my report into two articles. The continuation follows… Stay tuned!