I have been to Austria before this summer, technically. When I visited family in Germany, we walked across the border and went to a café and had a pastry. I’ve counted it as my 7th country visited, right between Germany and Finland. But I’ve always known that I wanted to come back and explore, because Austria has a lot to offer!
From Paris, Sam and I flew to Vienna. We originally wanted to try the night train but it sold out too quickly. It was a bit of a strange time to be in Vienna – I hadn’t realized it when we’d booked, but it was meant to be the same dates that Taylor Swift was in town. At first I was glad we had found a reasonably priced hotel but worried everything would be crowded. Then, when the concert was cancelled due to the foiled terrorism threat, it morphed into a different worry. Huge shout out to the Austrian authorities for figuring that out and preventing the attack!
It didn’t impact our trip, really. It meant a few areas were more crowded, and instead of tourists taking photos, it was sad would-be concert goers exchanging wristbands and singing in the streets. The stores were offering discounts to anyone who presented a concert ticket, usually at 22% as a tie-in to Taylor Swift. It was sobering to think that something tragic could have happened while we were there, and a little ironic for it to happen immediately after we left the massive international event that is the Olympics.
Anyway. On to Vienna! This was one of our more chill stops – most of what I wanted was to experience café culture and explore some of the neighborhoods. After so many busy day trips out of Luxembourg and the excitement of the Olympics, these were a few days to rest and enjoy being in a beautiful city before we went back to traversing through Central Europe by train and switching hotels every night.
Vienna is known for its museums – so much so that there’s actually a whole district devoted to them, called MuseumsQuartier. If I’ve learned anything from living in DC, it’s that it’s all too easy to get museum’d out, so we picked the one we were most interested in and started there – the Museum of Austrian Contemporary History, which covers their history starting in 1918. The museum was housed in the Hofburg in Heldenplatz, which was a gorgeous building!
Austria has a bit of a complex relationship with its recent history, as, I suppose, any German-speaking country in Europe might. This was a theme throughout our trip. When we were buying our ticket, the woman actually asked us if we realized this museum wouldn’t have any history from before 1918, seemingly confused why we would want to go to this one. It was fascinating – Austria seems to want to have a dual narrative of WW2, in which they were both completely innocent of any actions taken by the Nazi regime and also that they were never conquered as a nation. The two ideas seem to be at odds, yet both are present throughout their telling of history.
I’ve heard travelers debate at length about whether Vienna is boring. I think there is a sense that everything functions as it should, that all its edges have been worn away and replaced by public parks and efficient transit and more cultural institutions than you could ever hope to see in a single visit, and that it makes Vienna somehow less interesting than places that are less organized.
Was Vienna my favorite place we went to? No, but I liked it a lot. And if you told me I had to pick somewhere to live in Europe for a few years, Vienna would be among my top choices. There’s something very pleasant about being somewhere where things just sort of…. work. I also had an excellent time in the rest of Austria (more on this soon!) and would love to return at some point to see more.