Austria by Rosemary Barrass

To get to Austria, you can fly with American Airlines from San Francisco connecting in JFK airport on the Austrian Airlines plane. The total flight time is approximately 16 hours and the total cost for two poeple is 5982.20USD. You will land in the Vienna International Airport. Once you arrive, you will want to exchange your US dollars for euros. The current exchange rate (updated Jan 7, 2009) is 1000 dollars to 733.7 euros. You can rent a car from Europcar, which is in the airport, for your trip. We selected the Economy 4-door which costs 39.55 euros a day for a three day rental, totaling to 118.65 euros. For your three night stay, you will stay in the Das Reinisch Swiss Q Hotel, which costs about 85.59 euros a night, totaling to 256.77 euros. By this time, you will have 358.28 euros to spend on your activities.

The first day, you will stay in Vienna. In the morning you will visit the St. Stephan's Cathedral. You can visit the cathedral for free, but if you take the tour of the catacombs it will cost you 4 euros each. The cathedral was built in the 12th century in what was the town center. In 1258, a fire virtually destroyed Stephansdom and a Gothic building replaced the ruins. The cathedral was severely damaged when the Turkish attacked and during World War II, then it was restored in 1948. The cathedral is one of the greatest Gothic structures in Europe. You will probably want to stay here for a few hours to go on the tour and take in the beauty of the structure.

These are pictures of the cathedral. On the right is a picture of the inside of the cathedral. This is the Master Pilgrim who is looking out of the window. Above is a full view of the cathedral from the outside.

After the cathedral, you will visit the Museum of Fine Arts, or Kunsthistorisches Museum. To get in, it is 10 euros each. This museum has many of the art pieces gathered by the Habsburgs. There is a fine collection of ancient Egyptian and Greek art. There is also art by famous artists like Velasquez and Titian. They have great works of art such as Van Dyck's Venus in the Forge of Vulcan. The highlight of this museum is definately the Albrecht Dürer collection. He was a Renaissance painter and engraver known for his innovative art. His piece, Blue Madonna, is in the museum and is recommended to see.

For dinner the night, go to the Augustinerkeller to get authentic Austrian food. Founded in 1857, Augustinerkeller has served its food and drink from the basement of one of the Hofburg palaces. They play schrammel, which is traditional Viennel music, all through the night. This long building is as packed with people as it is character with the roaming accordion players and the vintage wines. You can have a tasting of the local wines and buy some at great prices. The food is simple, but good. They serve traditional Austrian foods like schnitzel and tafelspitz.








The next day, you will drive a little less than 25 miles to Baden bei Wien, a small town south of Vienna. In the main square, or Hauptplatz, there is the Trinity Column. This column, built in 1714, commemorates the passing of the plague that went through Vienna and the Wienerwald in the middle ages.


Another place of interest in Baden is the house that Beethoven used to live in every summer from 1821-1823 for two weeks. Beethoven used to go here in search of a cure for his increasing deafness. The site has been turned into a small museum, Beethovenhaus, which costs 2.50€ per person. Inside are a few small rooms with his bed, one of his pianos, several pieces of porcelain, pictures of his other homes, and copies of the musical folios he worked on whilst in Baden.
Then, you will drive back home to Vienna to the Akademie theater. You can get the best seats at 48€ a head. If you arrive at the right date, you have a chance of seeing the Burg theater company, the world-famous troupe.

On your last day, you can visit the Wienerwald, or Vienna Woods. The Vienna Woods are a wide arc of forrested countryside that surrounds northwest and southwest Vienna. This land is beautiful and many locals go here instead of the city parks. So, if you're interested in meeting some locals and having a wonderful picnic in the beautiful countryside, then this is the perfect place to be.

To truely wrap up a great trip to Austria, you have to visit the Hofburg. This is a beautiful palace located in the heart of Vienna. It is a complex of imperial edifices, the first of which was created in 1279, that can be described as a city within a city. The style is a bit mismatch because each of the emperors would add or take away some of the work done by his predecessors. Called die Burg (the palace) by the Viennese, this palace has withstood three major sieges and a great fire. Though there are more than 2,600 rooms, only about two dozen are open to the public.