And Vienna is famous for its coffeehouses, with their atmosphere, good coffee, and wonderful cakes and pastries. Sachertorte, Esterhazytorte... Coffeehouse-hopping didn't sound like a bad idea!
And that's exactly what we did.
We had watched the snow start to fall from our cozy table, which had 2 chairs and a loveseat, and after an ooh-ahh whirl through the Demel shop on the way out we bundled up and ventured back out into the cold. Down the block we did some sightseeing in the very high end grocery store, taking the glittering glass elevator up to the cheeses and meats and generally gawking at the variety of foods as well as the enormity of the prices. The closest comparison is Whole Foods, but this is like what Whole Foods aspires to in its wildest dreams. What I really admire in the grocery stores I've been in here, though, even the normal ones, is the reference to the country of origin by little flag icons on the shelf tags. Wanting to be true to our location and go for all things Austrian, it's easy just to look out for the flag and there you go. Although, the packaging tends to advertise Austrian origins in fairly salient ways already. A friend told us the other day that Austrians are very particular about high quality food. Of course, you can find a lot of junk as you can anywhere, but I think it's true that we have been eating very very good, fresh foods, from meats and cheeses to fruit and veggies. Hooray for a foodie country!
Back to the story - so we headed for some Weihnachtsmarkts, which are pretty much in every -platz or square. The one in front of the Rathaus (city hall) is one of the bigger and more famous ones, and the Rathaus itself is the best advent calendar I've ever seen - check out the photo (you'll want to click on it to see it large).
From there we shuffled through the snow to the market at the hospital, which unfortunately wasn't open until the afternoon, so we continued on to marvel at the nearby Votive Church, Votivkirche. It was beautiful inside, but cold - not as cold as outside but enough to see your breath, and I thought about how cold it would be sitting through a service. Yikes. But how can you possibly heat such a huge, huge, tall, tall space?
The only photo I have from here is of this interesting pair of vending machines at the entrance. (Inside the heavenly one are booklets and CDs about the church and museum).
We were cold. Time for the next cafe. Destination: the Palm House, the imperial greenhouse from the 1880s at Schoenbrunn Palace. A couple of subway stops, then walk through Maria-Theresien-Platz, which, being a -platz of course had a big Christmas market, situated between the art and natural history museums around the statue of Maria-Therese.
We luckily got a table in the non-smoking section (there are a LOT of smokers here compared to CA), right at the window, looking out onto part of the palace park, the snow coming down and the evening falling. Pumpkin cream soup, with the ever-present pumpkin seed oil (something Graz is actually known for, so most salad there comes with pumpkin seed oil and vinegar dressing - it's very good, but I think it's also the season now, so this stuff is everywhere), and grilled carp with vegetables. Mmm...
to be continued in part 2...