Vienna, Austria

For Thanksgiving weekend, we headed out to Vienna, Austria. I actually took Friday off and we spent Friday and Saturday seeing the sights. We first went to see the Schoehnbrunn palace. It was beautiful outside where they had a smaller Christmas market set-up. We went and toured the palace first, then went to the market. Got some hot chocolate and warmed up (it was starting to drizzle and was freaking cold!!). We found some Christmas items we just couldn't pass up, too. We then headed back in to the city. We walked to the main Christmas market in the Rathhaus (town hall) and that was an awesome Christmas market!! Side note: Vienna's Christmas markets are actually rated #2 in Europe per a CNN website I read this week. :) We found dinner after walking through the market...ate at a nice Italian place. We had dessert at the Christmas market - hot chocolate and a cinnamon/sugar pretzel that was almost as big as my head. Then, since it was late and so cold (the rain was getting heavier and colder), we called it a night (had to walk back through the market though to get to the metro)!

Saturday, we got up early and headed out to see the town. We went to first to go see the Danube River. Had a nice surprise church we ran across on the way that was very beautiful. Then, we headed to the Stephansdom church. It was a bit disappointing inside because you couldn't go in the main area of the church since mass was going on and the only area we could get in to was extremely crowded. The church was very pretty and unique on the outside. From there, we walked down the shopping street and saw 3 Swarovski crystal (manufactured in Austria) stores in a few blocks of each other. We went in the one that was 3 floors!! Beautiful!! They even had their Christmas lights hanging above the streets made out of these crystals and white lights! They shimmered so beautifully in the sun! :) We walked to the Karlskirche (Charles church). They had a small Christmas market here that had a petting zoo, straw everywhere, pony rides and of course hot chocolate. We went in the church but agreed to come back to the market later. From there, we went to the Museum's quarter - an area of town with lots of museums - go figure. There was a Christmas market in this area, too! More hot chocolate was consumed, of course! :) We took a break and went to the hotel and warmed up, then came back out to get dinner at Vapiano's for one last time. Then, we went to see the Christmas markets at night. We were disappointed because the Karlskirche market was shutting down as we got there. So, we went back to the shopping street and saw everything at night. We ended up back at the Rathhaus market and got more hot chocolate. :) We stayed out a bit later, but had to get up at 3 am in order to catch our flight at 7 am. It was a fun weekend!!