The Amazing Race- Museum Edition

On Friday Dan and I set out for a big day of sightseeing. We are leaving on Wednesday for Prague so we wanted one more day to fit in a bunch of sights and traditional Viennese things that we hadn't seen yet. It also was a national holiday here so the museums were all open and discounted. Optimal time to run in, see the highlights, and go onto the next one.

The Freud Museum, the Vienna Criminal Museum,
Elephants at the Natural History Museum & the Ferris Wheel

We picked out the top things we needed to see, planned our routes, researched what we needed to know about why these items were important and set off. Now, to be honest we made it inside 1 of the many museums we planned. We actually went inside of the Art Museum to see some of Gustav Klimt's original works. In the late afternoon it was getting really cold and we had been walking around a lot all day so we scrapped the rest of the museums and went to a local brewery- 1516 -for a Austrian beer while waiting for our dinner reservations. Priorities, right?

Dan at the Art Museum, Katie at St. Leopold's Church, The ceiling of
the Art Museum, homemade pretzels, beers at 1516

At one point in the day we stumbled onto a military fair in the center of town. It was filled with old helicopters and machines, German shepherd dogs doing demonstrations of rescue/search work, food stands with authentic Austrian food, etc.

That night we had reservations at one of the recommended Austrian restaurants Plachutta. It is known for their dish tafelspitz. It is basically "boiled beef" in chicken broth with carrots, onion, potatoes, and parsnips. On the side there are two sauces- horseradish applesauce and chive creme. We were looking for authentic Austrian food and it was pretty good.

Side note about dinner: We were seated in the enclosed space that is the porch when the weather is nice. A couple came in that was a little bit older than us and the lady had her dog. We had reservations at 6 pm so it was a fancy-ish dinner crowd... She placed her dog in the chair at the table, the waiter brought out huge silver dog dishes with chopped steak and a water bowl. The woman proceeded to hand feel the small dog buttered bread. Her date/husband never blinked at this. I have read that dogs are the Austrian version of children in a lot of cases, but this took it to a whole new level...and it takes a lot to shock me with how people treat their dogs. My sisters dog is named Harry Winston and you'd think he was an actual child at my parents house. Compared to this dog HW might as well be on food stamps.

Dan at the Military Fair, Austrian Food Tent, Sister Act,
the Myers in front of the Upper Belvedere on a chilly night

On Sunday we went for a walk around town again to see the Upper Belvedere- a museum we had on our list for Friday but skipped to go to the brewery. It is where the original Klimt "The Kiss" is housed. It was really cold on Sunday and we had to get out our hats, gloves and winter coats. It was the perfect way to end our month here in Vienna. Plus,  a big big big Irish win over Oklahoma last night doesn't hurt!

We are off to Prague on Wednesday for the month. More blogs to come with new adventures in the Czech Republic. Check back this week for more stories!

Hope everyone had a great weekend!