Round and round the Opera House!

Our first day in Vienna we walked around the Opera House multiple times! Having come up from the Vienna Underground right next to it, we walked around two sides to get to the Tourist Information Centre, then past it to go to the Museum Cafe for lunch. Then back past it on a different side to find the accessible toilet, and around again to book tickets to a concert for the following day! It’s an imposing building but we didn’t find time to go inside to see the impressive interior decor.

The Museum Café was quite an experience. It’s one of THE cafés in Vienna. Although there were steps to enter, a doorbell marked with a wheelchair symbol summoned someone to bring a ramp. We were shown to our table with its velvet seats and chose soup followed by cake. Racheal thought my orange cake was very tasty and kept asking for more!

Alexander, in the ticket booth, went to great lengths to find us suitable tickets for a classical, Christmas concert. He had studied at UEA and was interested to hear about our travels. Once we had our tickets, we headed back on the underground to our car, and then to the house via an essential supermarket trip.

The second day, we chose to take the tram into the city alighting near the Opera House, of course! We found a very pink café to have coffee and give Racheal her lunch, before eating our picnics in the square outside St Stephen’s cathedral.

Once we’ve found a suitable place to do Racheal’s personal care, we often keep to that place rather than hunting out new places. In Vienna, this was a department store with a large, solid changing table in the baby change. No hoist, but better than resorting to disabled toilet floors. The top floor of the shop also gave great views over the city.

After our visit to the cathedral, we started on Christmas markets. There was a small one around the cathedral, then we moved on to a much larger one at Karlsplatz (back past the Opera House) by which time it was starting to go dark. The Christmas markets have more atmosphere after dark, and Racheal seems to enjoy them more. This might be because she can see the lights and there is sometimes entertainment, like a children’s choir singing in Karlsplatz. They are also more crowded in the evening which makes it more difficult to manoeuvre Racheal’s chair.

This particular evening we had the concert at the Capuchin Church to look forward to. A string quartet with visiting trumpet player and soprano singer were to perform a selection of Christmas music. The Roman Catholic Church was not as ornately decorated as some we have been in, but did have a fair smattering of statues. A large Advent Ring was suspended from the ceiling and large candles were lit in front of the altar. As I’ve not taken Racheal to a classical music concert of this kind before, I thought it best to sit at the back where we could make a quick exit if she didn’t like it. I need not have worried. She loved every minute and I had to remind her to enjoy it quietly, which she did as soon as I asked her. It was wonderful to see her getting so much pleasure from the performance.

Day three in Vienna and the sun finally came out! Until now, the white and pale grey buildings against a mostly grey sky had not looked as impressive as they might, but the sunshine changed that dramatically. Our first stop, the old Imperial Palace buildings now mostly house museums. From there we walked through a park to the Rathaus and another Christmas market before exploring some grand streets.

On our final day in Vienna, Summer took us to the Hundertwasser Village. A quirky area in the city where the buildings were designed to be fun and colourful, with few straight lines or level surfaces.

Our next stop was Mozart Mythos, an immersive experience of Mozart’s life and music using sound, lights and projection. There were plenty of things Racheal could be involved in and it was a good end to our time in Austria before packing up for the next stage of our journey.

One of the things Racheal is particularly enjoying about our Europe trip is using public transport. Here are a few tram and underground photos in Vienna.