When: 29/11/2012 Where: Vienna, Austria Stayed: Best Western Premier Kaiserhof Wien
Top travel destination, Worlds most livable city, City of Music, City of Dreams… the list of claims to fame for Vienna goes on. I can say with absolute confidence that ‘City of Christmas Market Magic’ should be added to the list of descriptors. Herein lies a wonderland of Christmas nostalgia, trinkets, lighting, food and beauty unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.
With around 16 traditional Christmas markets spread across the city it’s almost impossible to avoid being swept up in the festive spirit. If the aromas of roasted chestnuts and Christmas punch don’t draw you in, then the sight of langos (deep fried bread), Bratwurst, and Brummel cake in a mug with vanilla sauce most likely will. Even the Gringiest of us would find it hard to knock back the warm and fuzzy Christmas glow that creeps into your cold bones (it was -2 degrees) as you take in the razzle dazzle of lights and carols across the city. What’s not to love about rounding a corner of the old town and stumbling across a pop up market offering you a warm cup of Gluhwein to help ease the stinging in your finger tips? ‘I know it’s only 11am on Sunday but ja, zwei bitte!’
It probably goes without saying that not every city would be able to pull off Christmas markets on this scale without coming across as tacky. The lighting verges of Grizwold style at times and surely there’s a limit to the number of gluhwein and roasted chestnut vendors you can have in any one city. However Vienna with it’s cobblestone streets, beautiful boutique shops, classic galleries and traditional coffee houses oozes such charm in it’s own right that the addition of wooden market stalls just serves to compliment it’s style. Even in the midst of Christmas market peak hour with 300 buses rocking up Vienna somehow managed to retain it’s authenticity…just.
The Christmas markets appeared to cater for different audiences which added to it’s appeal and ability to avoid tacky territory. Rathauspark with it’s festively decorated trees, enough lighting to give you a headache, theme park layout, fairy tale scenes and sheer volume of stalls bordered on over-the-top for us. Despite the lighting extravaganza, the positioning of the market in front of the City Hall was pretty spectacular. In contrast to the tourist trail of Rahauspark and also Marien Platz, Museum Quarter provided a drinking set up for the younger generation (so, not us) which we felt compelled to visit. A semi circle of bars lay at the foot of Leopold Museum offering tantalizing Christmas punch of an extraordinary range of flavors as well as old faithful Gluhwein. This was clearly where the cool kids went to drink.
Cool kids also frequented the Spittelberg markets, buried in the back streets behind Museum Quarter. These markets had more of a rough and ready feel to it with barely a word of English spoken and little of the glitz and glamour of the tourist driven markets across town. Imperfect homemade goodies, edgy, arty looking people and brilliant fried and fatty food. Here we were introduced to the Kartoffelpuffer… a fried potato delight covered in garlic and salt. No wonder they say the Germans miss this food most when they move away…we’ve been pining for it ever since. Karlsplatz was another market we returned to several times, possibly because it was rolling distance to our hotel but no need to dwell on that. With more of an art & craft flavour to it, Karlsplatz gave us a little insight into the local trade and traditional Viennese gifts.
We stayed in the Best Western Premier Kaiserhof Wien. Very hard to say a bad word about this hotel – quiet, friendly and full of Viennese charm the hotel was conveniently located and most importantly, put on a phenomenal spread for Breakfast. Suffice to say our eating bonanza in Vienna well and truly started at breaky…
Not only did we gorge ourselves at the markets but we also graced a local restaurant called Gusshaus. (Turns out there are only so many sausages and fried things you can eat before you start to feel ill). Gusshaus came highly recommended by our hotel so we arrived full of anticipation at the evening ahead. We were only marginally deterred by the completely empty room that met our arrival. You know it’s quiet when you’re sitting at the table listening to the clock tick on the wall and whispering to each other for fear of disturbing the wait staff… fortunately things improved from there and we had a fantastic meal of Wiener Snitzchel. The restaurant was full by the time we left. Say no more.
The other diversion from the Christmas markets came in the form of Viennese coffee houses. Two standouts – Museum cafe and Cafe Landtmann (Sigmund Freud’s preferred cafe apparently) sent Justin into a little happy place at the quality of coffee. The Apple Strudel and vanilla custard also helped. The coffee houses are set up so that in theory, you could order one coffee and that would give you the right to sit there all day. Famous writers, artists, scientists and politicians are known to frequent the coffee houses. They’re credited with helping to affirm the current social culture in Vienna giving people a space to come and relax, read international newspapers, work and socialise. Yep, big tick to the Viennese coffee houses!
All in all Vienna exceeded our expectations. Even the stilted and somewhere frustrating walking tour in both German and English where we felt certain we were only hearing half the stories (you can’t tell me a 5minute spiel in German only takes 1 minute in English…hmmmm) couldn’t dampen our spirits. We came away from Vienna not only feeling sick from a bizarre combination of foods but solemnly vowing to return to discover life beyond Christmas markets in the city.
Cathy & Justin Abroad 