Vienna Day 2

Day 2

Secession Building

On our second day in Vienna, we slept in a bit then when to the Café Museum - one of the ubiquitous coffee shops in Vienna. The café was built in 1899 and Gustav Klimt hung out there. The coffee was delicious - just what we needed! We had lunch while there, asparagus soup, asparagus cordon bleu (can you tell it's asparagus season?), Viennese pasta and dumplings.

Wagner apartments

We then walked past the famous Secession building, built in the Jugendestile style. Next we saw the Wagner apartments, designed in 1899. On the way back up the street we wandered through the Naschmarkt an outdoor market with fresh foods, souvenirs, places to eat and bakeries.


Sachertorte

We went over to the Vienna Opera House - which opened in 1869 and then up to Sacher Hotel for the famous sachertorte and coffee. The dessert was created in 1840 and has been made the same way ever since. After our fortification, we went to the Hofburg Complex, which contains imperial apartments, the national library, the Spanish Riding School and more. We saw the Mozart Memorial and buildings ranging from the early 1700's to late 1800's.

Then it was over to Stephansdom Cathedral. A church has been there for over 800 years but has be rebuilt over the years. The church is in the center of Vienna and has a tiled roof with a quarter of a million glazed tiles. There was a church service happening while we were there and the choir and organ music was great.

After we left the church we walked over to the Frauenhuber, the oldest coffee house in Vienna and a place Mozart played. We had the kaiserschmarrn - basically fluffy shredded pancake with plum sauce - a dessert named for Franz Joseph I. Our waiter there was fantastic! Since we were still hungry, we went over to Julius Meiln, a great grocery with a restaurant upstairs. We had some wonderful Viennese white wines, asparagus with hollandaise and dessert.