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Europe 2024: Christmas market
posted : Tuesday, February 25, 2025
Last day in Vienna!
Evening flight so we still have some time to spend in Vienna, and lots to do but I ended up giving up some of it. Checked out, didn’t hunt for a breakfast place but we headed straight to Schonbrunn Palace. Agenda was not the museum itself hahahah but the Christmas market outside it. I was oddly excited about this, I’ve heard good things about European Christmas markets and as usual, our travel period meant that we are mostly too early for Christmas markets - this is one of the few that opened earlier, in fact just the day before, or I would have gone here on our first night instead of in bright daylight because I think the ambience would have been very much different but hey I’m not complaining.  Station named after the landmark  Entrance to the Christmas market in front of the palace  Stalls  Of course there’s a carousel  Let the feast begin, started with some schnitzel  Mulled wine, and I had this orange punch liquor thing. Gotta say it’s not my favorite thing on earth, unsurprisingly since I am not a huge alcohol drinker and this is hot alcohol even so that was even more of a turn off. The concept of paying a deposit for the mug is new to me - we ended up bringing one home so forfeit the deposit for one.  Friend told me to find a restaurant with spaetzle, I didn’t have time for one so just got one here. Quite like it.  Arancini  Then a loaded baked potato to round things up  Of course there’s a Christmas tree  This dude is so 小气seriously. If you didn’t pay up he will just look away and refuse to be part of your photo. And I think the food was mostly good, wish I could stomach more though I think I really am not a fan of mulled wine. Or wine in general. I had planned a market visit but decided to drop it, and headed back to Stephansplatz. In pursuit of Viennese coffee, which was something of an obsession ever since I learnt of its existence (in a cafe at Seoul of all places). So I thought I really need a good one (the McDonalds one last night didn’t count, although I thought it was quite nice and sweet)! We passed by this cafe the other day near Figlmuller so I thought I’d check it out again because I googled and saw it on their menu, but they clarified that they only have a hot one and it is more like the Wiener Melange I had the other day, so we ended up just having the sister’s usual matcha latte and their cheesecake which turns out to be an unexpected star.  San Sebastián cheese cake or more commonly known as basque cheesecake….and it was so good! Popped by another cafe nearby that I googled and finally found out that they don’t serve iced Viennese coffee during cold months. Ahh I don’t see why not but I guess you do you. Then doubled back to Truth Coffee to get an actual cup of latte ahahaha staff must be questioning my choices.  Got a croissant, didn’t get around to eating it until we were in London lol  Exploring  Doubling back to Truth for a coffee  Passing by St Stephen’s cathedral again. Their Christmas market had also started but we didn’t see a point. Then it’s back to the hotel to collect our luggage and head off to the airport. Airport Express is a scam apparently as it is only 8 minutes faster than the S7 train but a lot more expensive. So we duly took the alternative, though it meant we had to drag our luggage a bit further to another train station. And after alighting, it was a longgg 10 minute walk or so to T1.  Vienna city station (not to be confused with Vienna HBF) But I think highlight of the airport was the Vienna Lounge, which was free for Priority Pass holders and it was an excellent lounge - food variety was decent, facilities were clean and aplenty, nice aesthetics and we also get nice sunset views to round off the Austrian leg of the trip.  Lounge interior  Sun sets early so we are there at the right time!  Quite like the deco We took British airways and it was a decent flight even though once again, there wasn’t any full meals despite it being a two hour ish flight and BA being a full airline, but I guess that’s the norm in Europe? But we got to London on time, and to our hotel. Knowing that we really only had one short night in London I didn’t want to go all the way to town and be subjected to expensive room rates, so I settled on somewhere along the Elizabeth line, that is sort of still near-ish to town if we wanted to head out after arriving. But in reality we were in no condition to do that la so actually I could have just taken one step further and stayed at an airport hotel instead - we were going to leave our luggage behind after checking out the next morning anyway before heading to town. Oh well.  Just a small snack and a drink which is what we get for short MH flights to KL  Obviously hungry again and we passed by this Popeyes outlet at Hammersmith while looking for the correct exit so decided to just eat first And this was I think the least enjoyable room of all our stays, a bit warm and the toiletries were poor - using a Rituals bottle but filling it with cheap diluted stuff, dirty towels etc. But ultimately we were only there for about 12 hours so we didn’t make a fuss.  Ended up at Novotel Room tour  Said croissant from earlier Off to the last post of the trip (finally!) |
