Vegan Voyager: Vienna

After Prague, we headed down to Vienna. Once again, I had already been there, this time with Neil and Pat. And once again, I was excited about the prospect of going back. When I went with Neil and Pat, it was late December/early January, and Vienna was snow-covered and beautiful. I was excited to get to see it in the summer, sun-drenched and beautiful.

Guillaume and I at the Habsburgs' summer palace


As expected, Vienna was absolutely GORGEOUS in the summer! It's really a majestical city. And it was cool to get to see some of the sites I had seen with Neil and Pat all over again from a summer point of view. And also to see some new things that I hadn't seen with them. My favorite of which was the Hapsburgs' summer palace (see picture above).

MY FAVORITE PART OF VIENNA:
Viennese children must really love to play; we found some AWESOME playgrounds all around Vienna. And despite the fact that we are not children on the outside, we PLAYED! There were real swings and rope swings and tires to bump around on and fountains that you got to make work yourself. There was also this really cool bird that you got to climb up in to make flap its' wings. And, not to be forgotten, there was a mini dirt dumping machine (I have no idea how this thing is supposed to be called), and I got to amuse myself digging holes and attempting to throw dirt at Guillaume.



That dirt you see flying out of my shovel thing - yeah, it was headed right towards Guillaume.

MOST ANNOYING THING THAT HAPPENED IN VIENNA:
We were by Stephensplatz attempting to make our way towards the Manner wafer store (yes, that's right, the Manner wafer store. Manner Mignon = the most DELICIOUS vegan wafer in existence. Soooo good, and I was super psyched to finally get to share this deliciousness with Guillaume) when this woman walks by, stops practically on top of us, ashes her cigarette on Guillaume's foot, lifts up her cigarette into Guillaume's shirt (seriously - the fact that it didn't burn a hole in his shirt is shocking) and then ashes again, right onto Guillaume again. When I point out to her that she should try to pay more attention to where she ashes and where she puts her cigarette (I should have also pointed out that it's not polite to stop right on top of people), she made crazy person circles around her ears.
Perhaps I was crazy in that moment, though, because of how annoyed I was by how completely inconsiderate she was with her deathstick.
I dream of the day cigarette fascism takes over and smoking becomes illegal.

RESTAURANTS:
Unfortunately, as it was vacation time for us, it was also vacation time for the restaurants. A lot of them were closed, but we were lucky to discover one little open gem called Bio Bar Von Antun. It was a little bit expensive, but it was absolutely worth it. We had what were possibly the most delicious mashed potatoes either of us had ever tasted. We also had scrumptious veggies and some vegan ice cream that we had both been long craving, what with the summer heat and all.
On our last day there, a small little restaurant called Formosa Food opened back up, so we stopped by for lunch and were not disappointed. Especially because, once again, we had the treat of vegan ice cream. Ohhhhh, yeah!
One night, after discovering that all of the other restaurants we wanted to go to were closed, we found ourselves at Vegestasia, which had been our last choice. It wasn't bad, though, by any means. Everything on the menu, though, seemed to be FRIED, so it was a little heavy.
I think that if we would have been there not during vacation time, we would have discovered just how amazing vegan dining in Vienna can be. It seems very vegan-friendly.



So, despite the heat wave going on while we were there, and despite almost all of the restaurants being closed, we had a beautiful time in Vienna. We saw many beautiful things and some not so beautiful things (see picture above). Yep, we made the mistake of going to the Museum of Modern Art, which I absolutely do NOT recommend. It should have been called the "museum of squiggles and inappropriate sexual pieces disguised as art." Oh, and as can be seen to the left, I found what I would LOVE to have as my halloween costume for this year.


Again, click on any of the pictures to find yourself at the album, or you can just click on the following link: Vienna Summer 2009