Daryl and Jackie's Euro Trip: SUMMARY: Austria

Austria was the eighth country that we have visited on this trip. By population, it is second smallest (8 million) only to Norway (5 million). While the country is low on people, it is high on beauty. We started our time in Austria visiting family in Villach, which is located in the south of Austria near the border with Slovenia. Next, we spent 6 days in Vienna, the capital. We finished with 3 days in Salzburg, which is on the border with Germany.

We really enjoyed our time in Austria and can’t really complain about anything. We would love to come back in the future. It seems like the more we think and reflect on our time in Vienna, the more we want to return (and do the things we didn’t have time for on the first go around).

Here is our recap.

Things we liked:

Beautiful scenery, beautiful buildings
Awesome (and on time) train system
Vienna’s transit system (modern, self-explanatory, relatively cheap, and clean)
Abundance of museums in Vienna, some of which we didn’t get a chance to visit
Delicious pastries and desserts (Oberlaa and Demel both had unbelievably delectable cakes)
Café culture (yummy coffee and the chance to linger and read for as long as you like)
Gustav Klimt, an artist whom we were unfamiliar with before, but really like
Lots of runners in both Vienna and Salzburg and easily accessible running paths

Things we didn’t like:

Stores close really early and are not open on weekends (this burned us in Vienna, as we were too late to the grocery store on Saturday and couldn’t get groceries until Monday morning)
Fairly expensive: Many museums seemed overpriced, restaurants were pricey (we ate in a lot)
We were in Vienna during National Austrian Independence Day, which fell on a Wednesday, and as a result everything was closed (again)
Smokers are everywhere; if you want to sit in the fun and happening section of the restaurant you are seated with smokers, while the non-smoking section is often empty

Interesting findings:

Salzburg is really close to Germany…like really, really close
Austrians love hockey, which made the people even more endearing to us Canadians
At hockey games, Austrians whistle instead of boo to show their distaste (they clap when pleased, as was expected)
People dress really nicely (men in fancy hats and sweater vests, women in beautiful scarves and skirts).
Everyone smokes, even young adults; this is counter to what we experienced in other Central or Eastern European countries, where mainly the older population smokes

As always, here are some additional photos (some of them are fairly low quality due to poor lighting in the picture-taking environment).