Wandering Vienna

After 2 full weeks in Vienna, I had begun to feel like I had seen it all, except for a museum or two that I was saving to visit with friends. I became a pro at the U-Bahn, expertly navigating my way to each stop (or expertly using my directions app), and I had seen most of the “big stuff”. I felt that way until I had a day off and could not come up with something to do. My friend and I decided that it might be fun to get off at a random stop and see what it had to offer. We ended up in a completely residential area. While it was new, it wasn’t what we had really intended on seeing. So instead of getting off at a completely random stop, we started looking for things to do that may not have made it onto the “Top 10 things to do in Vienna” lists and instead searched for something more along the lines of “unusual things in Vienna”. Even if it the lists had a bit of overlap, the second type gave us some ideas that we were interested in. We first went to the Schmetterlinghaus, the butterfly garden which is conveniently very close to the IES Abroad center! There were butterflies in every direction, and we even had a few land on us! It was an experience I have to recommend, although I would suggest going on a dry day as the building is quite humid.

After the butterfly garden, we did something that has been my favorite part of the trip so far—we decided to walk around! Every few minutes we stumbled upon what we considered to be the prettiest building we had seen so far. Minutes turned in to hours and suddenly I had discovered two things. First, we were now miles away from our starting point. Second, I had not seen nearly as much of Vienna as I had thought. This can be common; many students end up only exploring the area around the center and their apartment!  

After realizing just how much I enjoyed wandering, I did a second day of it! This time, I traveled to the Schönbrunn Palace and walked all over! Each path led to something beautiful and ended up at the top of the hill overlooking the palace, as well as the whole city! It was one of those experiences that felt straight out of a movie. I have a few days like this planned for the rest of my time in Vienna and I can’t wait to see what I stumble upon! It’s something that I have to recommend to other students, you may just discover your favorite part of the city, and even better; it’s free!