Vienna waits for you.

After two weeks of traveling around Europe, I am finally back to Olomouc and it feels great to unpack and be "home". Living out of a backpack was fun, but it's good to be back. In these past two weeks I visited Vienna, Austria, Venice, Verona and Rome, Italy and Santorini, Greece. It was our spring break and it definitely was a spring break I'll never forget. I don't think any other spring break destination could have topped Santorini, especially not PCB. This blog post would get extremely lengthy with me talking about greek food for pages and pages, so I'm going to start with our trip as a group to Vienna and Venice. Pictures from Santorini to come :)

Enjoying a gondola ride and of course some prosecco in Venice.

We started off in Vienna and spent two days exploring the city. Vienna was unlike just about any other European city I've seen. The city was extremely clean, the parks were huge and green, and you could just tell that Vienna had major class. It makes sense when you think that this city was the home of the Habsburg's, which were emperors of the Holy Roman Empire for a very long time, like hundreds of years. The city just had such rich culture and wealth, and you could just sense that the city was built on art, in fact it was the home of Mozart.

We spent our first day with a walking tour of the city, checking out the royal palace and the city. We had lots of free time in which we explored on our own and found a lovely park to relax in. The parks were beautiful and we had great weather which was nice. On our second day in Vienna we went to a few museums. We were able to see the inside of the imperial palace and treasury and a museum of art history. When the Habsburg's were dethroned after WWI, they forced to leave all of there belongings behind, so the amount of royal objects and original possessions was really impressive. We even saw the original crown of the Holy Roman Emperor. Both museums were very interesting as some of the displays dated back to the times of Christ. I wasn't expecting to see many Christian relics in these museums and especially in Vienna, but there were even pieces of the table cloth from the last supper which was really cool to see.

The museum of art history.

St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna.

Some of the relics in the imperial palace. One of these holds a scrap of the table cloth from the last supper.

Vienna was just filled with culture and the food was out of this world. I think I ate schnitzel every night, which Vienna is famous for. Out of this world. Austrian's are also famous for spending afternoons just relaxing in cafes, so on our second day, Taylor and I searched for a piece of the famous Sacher cake and a Viennese coffee and ended up in Vienna's oldest cafe. The cafes are beautiful, with painted ceilings and in art nouveau style architecture. The cafes were packed in the afternoon and we sat and enjoyed a dessert and a coffee.

A Weiner Schnitzel from the original place that started it. They've been making them for 110 years! Definitely one of my favorite meals I've had so far!

A Sacher tort and a Viennese coffee at Central Cafe, the oldest cafe in Vienna. The Viennese definitely love their afternoons in cafes.

After two days in Vienna we headed to Venice. We travelled by bus which took a while but we drove through the Alps so it was an enjoyable ride. We arrived in Venice and Jan showed us the city. Venice is definitely one of those just photogenic cities that just has its own charm. Immediately after getting off the train that took us from the mainland to the island, we stepped off and saw canals and those classic Italian style houses that I fell in love with during my first trip to Italy. After our little tour we wandered, literally as you go to Venice and just get lost, around the city, just popping into shops, taking in the culture, eating gelato, and eventually sitting down for a typical late Italian dinner, of course accompanied with tiramisu and a liter of wine. We had the best, fresh seafood pasta in Venice.

Not a bad view from our pitstop in Southern Austria.

One of the many canals in Venice.

Yes, the whole city is this cute.

Had to have my favorite, tiramisu.

The absolute best pasta in Venice, from a little place called Dal Moro's. We had it twice during our trip. The owner snuck us in before they opened on our last day to serve us before our train left. He gave us a free bottle of wine as long as we promised to leave a good review on trip advisor!

During our time in Venice we also visited St. Mark's Basilica, which is a beautiful Romanesque church where St. Mark is buried. It was humbling to be in such an ancient church, and a church where one of the apostles and writer of the gospel was buried. It was just such a unique experience that I really enjoyed. Venice was also under the rule of the Habsburg's and the Holy Roman Empire so we saw another imperial museum, climbed to the top of the clock tower in St. Mark's square, and went to the Accademia gallery that housed many famous works by Italian artists.

St. Mark's Basilica 

Views from the top of the clock tower.

The grand canal.

The ballroom in the imperial palace. 

We also had plenty of free time to wander around the city and enjoy Venice. We took a famous gondola ride, shopped, ate, drank wine, and enjoyed Italy. Our next stop: Verona!