September 20, 2026

Sunday

Wien, Austria

Happy Birthday Harry V! How is it possible that we have a grandson who is 22 years old. Twenty-two years ago, seems like a lifetime away or us. Oh, wait it is a lifetime ago.

Sunday in Wien. Even Starbucks opens a little later. Many of the retail stores will be closed today. For the most part it will be the souvenir       shops and restaurants that will be open. Even the supermarket when I have been purchasing my morning yogurt is closed on Sunday. I let Mary know I am heading out the door at 08:00 to get our coffee. Yes, again, the only place open even at 08:00 is Starbucks. Ok, McDonalds is, but that probably isn’t coffee.

We have tickets to the Hofburg Treasury at 10:00. Rick Steve’s seems to think this treasury contains the best jewels on the continent. We head out and towards the Hofburg Palace just after 09:00. We manage to arrive at the treasury just before it went 10:00. Good timing! There are twenty-one rooms filled with scepters, swords, crowns, orbs, heavy robes, single and double-headed eagles, gowns, gen-studded bangles, and even a unicorn horn (we now know it is a Narwhal Horn, which is actually an elongated upper left canine tooth that grows straight through the whales' lip). It is impressive to see. It is about 8 or 9 feet long and has a helix spiral. Of course, back in the day they still thought it was a unicorn’s horn with magical properties.

The crown of the first Holy Roman Emperor, Otto I (c. 960),, is probably the highlight of the collection. Honestly, you have to wonder how the heck these people stayed in power. Their subjects must have been really in awe when they saw these jewels, assuming they ever did. After all they lived in hovels and basically wore rags. Maybe it just took a thousand or so years of repression for them to revolt.

The tour took us about an hour. We didn’t get the audio headset, which was probably smart. The tour would have taken probably twice as long with the headset. We left the palace and headed out to get some lunch. We are leaving Wien tomorrow, so it seemed appropriate to have Wiener schnitzel one more time. It is a traditional Viennese dish. We stopped at Don Schnitzel, which has several restaurants in the touristy area. We stopped at the one on Stephanplatz. Not far from St. Stephen’s Cathedral and our hotel.

It was a good Wiener schnitzel, but not as good as the first night. They provided lemon but not the traditional Viennese cranberry sauce. Mary seemed to think it was the cranberry sauce that made it so good the first night. Mary chose the pumpkin soup for lunch. After finishing the Wiener schnitzel I wished I hadn’t chosen something dipped in wheat flour. But, hey I’ll get over it.

After lunch we headed back toward the Hofburg as we have 13:30 tickets for the Sisi Museum and Imperial Apartments. Empress Elisabeth (aka Sisi) was Emperor Franz Josef’s apparently mysterious, beautiful and narcissistic wife. She was the 19th century equivalent of Princess Diana.

The tour begins with Sisi’s death mask, her funeral clothes and photos of her funeral procession. It ends with a room dedicated to her assassination in 1898 in Geneva, Switzerland. The Imperial Apartments immediately follow the Sisi collection. These are the private apartments and unlicensed meeting rooms for the emperor and empress. They rooms are remarkable since they were preserved from the emperor’s death in 1916.   

Again,, this tour took us just about an hour. We skipped the audio portion. It would have taken two or more hours if you listened to everything. We exited the palace and walked around to the main courtyard. Mary had wanted to take another ride in one of the antique automobiles, they are all replicas running on electricity, like we did in Praha.

The hour-long ride was a combination of the walk we did, and a few more places a little further away from the main tourist area around the Hofburg. It is obvious after the ride that there are a number of other places one could visit in Vienna. More museums and art galleries to be sure. It would be nice to come back some day and have an opportunity to actually see an opera in the main opera house, and visit the Christmas markets of which Vienna is famous.

The driver dropped us off near our hotel and we walked up to our room. We finished a card game we started yesterday, organized things for the trip to Torino tomorrow, and eventually headed out for some dinner.

We chose to stop at the Würstelstände just down the street.  (recognized as UNESCO intangible cultural heritage). Mary’s choice was the Käsekrainer. I went with something new - the Waldviertler (a robust, heavily smoked, and coarsely ground pork sausage with a tight casing that snaps when you bite into it). We stood at the counter running along the edge of the Würstelstände and ate them. They were both very good, although Mary preferred the Waldvietler and I the Käsekrainer. We got a large bottle of water from the stand.  

After finishing we walked across the street to a small shop that sells ice cream and other things. Mary got a mint chocolate chip single scoop ice cream. I struck to the water. We did a little more walking and then headed back to the hotel.

We returned to our room. We played another game of cards. I had some tea. Then I took a bath and got ready for bed.

Buonanotte & Ciao

Enrico and Maria