Vienna is as nice as I remembered it to be. The cobblestoned streets, extremely nice architecture, and quaintness is still there. But perhaps the charm has faded away, slowly. I remembered being enchanted by Vienna as a young 16 year old making my way for the first time into Europe, and being amazed by the wonderful architecture, culture, music, and everything. We travelled around in style as well, in a Coach (for a school trip). This time, it was much more different, travelling around like backpackers, from a hostel, so on, so on. And also it was scorching hot - most of the time the days were like 30deg or more. But I had some really awesome experiences, probably three of the best ones on the trip. The first was the awesome free Summer Night Concert at Schonbrunn where we managed, thank God, to go into the seating areas to sit down very near the stage where the Vienna PHilharmonic was playing. Listening to very charming music (think the Viennese waltz) amidst serene scenery of lush shapely trees and perfectly manicured gardens and vast grass patches was quite a sublime experience. God was in the place enjoying the performance as well, and I guess I was thankful just to have been there at that time.

The other was the awesomest lunch at Steirereck, rated 21 in the world. Of course, just like every other food experience, it will be blogged at my other blog (the foodie in me) - it was 5 sublime courses for 65 euros, admittedly expensive, but I'm only in vienna once. I had OFFICIALLY the best Chocolate I have had in my life, a perfect balance of sweet, bitter, chocolatey, with a perfect chocolate flavour, chocolate as it's meant to be eaten. And the cheeses were sublime as well - especially the blue cheese, that felt like heaven as the flavours exploded in my mouth. More to come in the food blog!

And lastly we managed to visit the usual tourist attractions - the Stephensdom, which was rather imposing and grand, the Hofburg, which was really quite touching especially the story of Franz Joseph and his love for his wife and his spartan lifestyle, extreme piety and deep devotion to God, and his sense of dut - and the Schonbrunn palace which was quite lovely. Thank God for Vienna.

Now Im stuck in transit tryng to get back to London. Ah well, the value of patience.