Day 4 (Wien, Austria)

We arrived at Wien, Austria on the 9th Feb some time around 12pm or so. There was some unhappiness wrt a particular validating stamp that was absent from our passes.. sigh. But putting it all behind us, and becoming a lil wiser as travellers... we headed straight for the tourist office at Wien, picked up a map and went in search of our hostel.

Hostel Ruthensteiner. This is a hostel 3 min from e station, near to a nice supermart selling groceries at friendlier prices and quite good eating places at reasonable rates =) And the best bit? This hostel is nice to headless ants like us who ends up lost half e time =P

LooK! Our beds in the dorm. We had to spread our own sheets and stuffs... We shared this room with 2 Europeans (er nationality unknown. Cuz we didn't get to talk to them much) and 2 Japanese.

This is NOT part of the hostel anymore. haha It's actually at a metro station - StaatsOper I think... Anw, this is e stop closest to the Opera House. Well, this toilet (Opera Toilet Mit Musik) costs 0.50 Euro to enter and it's playing classical music all the time. Grin. Business minds at work here.. Being budget travellers, we naturally strayed only on the outside of the toilet, hearing music all the same. =)

This is the KarlsKirche - a (baroque) church. You'll slowly realize that churches are named kirches, doms etc etc. Havent researched on the differences.. maybe one of you will know - do let me know then. =) We shan't pretend to have visited this. But Karlsplatz is one of e central points in Wien and it's difficult to not keep passing by.

This church was Johann Fischer von Erlach (ok I googled this cuz there's no way I'll ever remember such a name...)'s winning design and it was built to honour Karl Borromeo, the patron saint of the fight against the plague. Its aim was to thank God for delivering Wien from the plague epidemic in 1713 that claimed more than 8,000 lives. This being our 1st day in Wien, we were still rather undecided about where we really wanted to go... so we continued walking past this church to see this:

Being in Wien, we naturally wanted to experience some culture - the unanimous recommendation was this place: Musikverein - one of the 3 finest concert halls in the world. Stars with composer's names/DOB/D like this trace the building and that's how we stumbled upon it eventually and bought our 3 Euro standing tix for a great performance featuring 4 bassoonists and 1 narrator. That was after we got waylaid by some other fancifully dressed officials selling tickets to opera/ ballet music. So yeps... the same 2 people who claimed we're too poor to enter the Opera Toilet invested some 30 Euros each in music education within an hr. *ouch

That's Stephensdom you see above; the recommended starting point for backpackers by the Lonely Planet guide. As you can see, it's indeed breath-taking... Cant get the whole thing into the cam, so I thought this picture found within the church would do very well indeed. Many parts of this church is still undergoing restoration. No doubt it'll receive in its full glory in time to come.. Wouldn't mind going back to see it again. But this place, being the centre of all tourist attention, lacks the peace I thought a church should have. Guess something's gotta give...

These are common sights along the streets of the more touristy areas... Stephensdom being one of the must-sees in Wien, naturally has a whole line of such horse carriages. They do look rather grand trotting down the streets of Wien.

Twin's comment on them is sweet and short: They smell a little.

hehs cant be helped...

Sighz... not losing steam. Just a lil tired for the day. Prob continue tmr or day after...

Update: there's a lil cny gathering at another exchange student's place tmr... hope it'll be lots of fun...

Nitez.. hope you guys have been enjoying the pictorial feast thus far... =)