Even though we saw so much of Vienna yesterday we still had so much to explore.

Before taking the Underground into the city we walked about 1km the opposite direction, to see the ‘new city’ from the bridge. It was a pretty cool view and the perfect blue sky was a good start to our day.

We got off the Underground at the Opera House and walked through Burggarten, it’s a really pretty park and has a Butterfly (Schmetterling) House, the Palace of Justice and a few cool statues.

From the park we then headed to Hofburg Palace, it’s a huge space that holds convention centres, museums as well as the Austrian National Library.

It was turning out to be such a beautiful day, the clouds were so pretty and made the perfect backdrop to one of the most spectacular buildings in Austria – Parliament. It really is a massive building, just over 13,500 square meters holding 100 rooms. The statues and architecture were amazing.

The Rathaus (Town Hall) in Vienna is stunning, very much built in the Gothic style between 1872 and 1883.

What we didn’t realise was that the 2014 Austrian Film Festival was being held there. The set up was really interesting and the important thing was that they had many markets and food/wine stalls set up 🙂 We had a good look around and then had ourselves some lunch and a beverage soaking up the atmosphere.

After enjoying our lunch in the sun we continued on to see the University and the Votiv Church, it was a bit of a walk and so we decided it was time to find somewhere for a quick beer/wine.

And well that’s where the afternoon/evening ended – Crossfields Australian Pub 🙂

It was a great way to relax and have some fun, we chatted to many fellow Aussie Tourists got some tips about future destinations and provided some tips to where we had already been.

The public transport in Vienna is awesome, the underground trains are really easy to navigate so after plotting our route on the map we headed out to explore Vienna.

First stop was St Stephen’s Cathedral, it was incredible as were the number of people in Stephansplatz shopping! As with many of the buildings in Europe the Cathedral was undergoing cleaning – you can see in one of the pics below where they have cleaned the building versus where they haven’t yet got to, the contrast is quite evident.

The next item on the list was St Peter’s Church, it too was very beautiful and the artwork was amazing, it was hard to comprehend that this church was consecrated in 1733. We are so lucky that the investment to restoration and maintenance is made by many countries to beautiful icons such as this church so we can all still enjoy them. St Peter’s Church went through major renovation between 1998 – 2004 to ensure all the paintings and sculptures were returned to their original colouring.

The architecture in Vienna is amazing everywhere we walked we came across something beautiful. Walking through Stadtpark we came across a gold statue of Mozart and some other impressive sculptures.

Below is the Imperial Palace – huge but not really impressive in comparison to the other buildings in Vienna.

The Opera House in Vienna is a big deal, it has been the subject of much controversy in the country as it has had to be rebuilt a couple of times after being damaged/destroyed during war time. It seems the design and size caused some debate and costs as with most projects of this nature were huge. In present day it’s used extensively, there are many classical music concerts held here every day as well as ballet and theatre. In fact, we were constantly hounded by men dressed in classical costumes asking us if we wanted to see a concert (for those who have been to Bali it was a bit like being asked if you wanted your hair braided every 10 minutes 🙂 ).

After we had some lunch we went on a mission to find the Church of the Jesuits. It’s hidden away down a few back streets but we had seen some incredible pictures on Trip Advisor and were determined to find it.

The church itself was so plain and simple on the outside that we nearly walked past it! However once inside the pictures we had seen just didn’t do this amazing building justice. It was one of the most incredible places we had seen to date – and you know we’ve seen a lot of awesome churches 🙂 What made this experience so special was the church choir practising as we had a look around, they sounded fantastic.

After a long day of walking around for hours it was time to get back to the hotel, have some dinner and plan what was left to see in Vienna tomorrow!