Vienna Markets, episode 2. In which we soak up the local schnitzel.

Just before booking our Vienna flight and hotel, I did a little more digging around (that's the guru part of being a travel guru) and (hold on to your fanny packs) discovered a Saturday flea market in Vienna.  Gulp.

dramatic pause

That changed everything!  Actually, the weekly flea market did cause us to change our itinerary and return home a day later than originally planned:  there was no way we were going to miss a flea market.  We love fleamarketing in other states because there really are regional goodies (old and new) not to be found elsewhere, but fleamarketing in other countries is a whole other international-delights-laced story.  Needless to say, "Saturday flea market" joined my growing Vienna "to-do-see-shop-eat-play" list of locales including Christmas markets, Freud Museum, opera, and Mozarthaus.  The plan was to sightsee and shop (and eat!) Monday through Friday and fleamarket on Saturday and we pretty much stuck to the plan, but as per our usual traveling convention, we kept adding more to the list as the days (and the beauty of the ancient city) unfolded before us.

I'm going to highly recommend the K+K Palais Hotel (my full-length review is on tripadvisor.com) especially for its central location. We were never more than an easily walkable mile away from anywhere we wanted to be.

tripadvisor is one of my

favorite planning resources

(Find me as LouSara.)

Our first schnitzel was at the Hard Rock Cafe, a few blocks from our hotel.  We are always comforted by finding a Hard Rock, especially when we are not yet familiar with local cuisine.  I also enjoy the collectibles, the music, and the familiarity of the menu.  International menus don't differ at all with the exception of the special "local legendary" burger.  In Edinburgh, Scotland, it was the haggis-topped burger; in Honolulu, teriyaki pulled-pork & pineapple; in Barcelona, goat cheese and chunky salsa.  When I asked our English-speaking waitress about the local burger special, she proudly shouted, "Schnitzel, of course!" so schnitzel it was.  We didn't expect the schnitzel to be breaded ham, but, then again, we didn't know what to expect.  The sandwich also sported a side of creamy dilled cucumber, which Mari especially liked, but she likes vegetables and I've learned not to hold that against her.

You can't fleamarket or shop in any form for an entire day without some form of sustenance, so my fleamarket adventures will necessarily include a few pit stops, like the Hard Rock.  Hope you don't mind.

Here are a couple more photos of Christmas market stalls.  We couldn't help but photograph the beautiful displays (always making sure to ask, of course).  As I said last time, we visited eight markets during our six and a half days, and even without buying into the metric standard, you can do the math. When Lou the travel guru was doing the math during the planning stages, he expected at most one Christmas market per day!

Mari and I were walking to the big market at city hall on Monday afternoon when we stumbled upon a smaller market just blocks from our hotel and as we were walking back along a different route, we found another.  It came to be a (good) running joke the entire week with us.  Wherever there was a big open plaza, a Christmas market would pop up.  So, don't worry too much about planning market stops or not being too close to a market, because they are EVERYWHERE.

These photos show some homemade gourmet goodies like cookies, breads, and pastries, as well as holiday and seasonal decorations.  One of the pine cone garlands found its way home with us to join our holiday decor, but we just couldn't bear the thought of biting into one of those festively festooned Christmas cookies, so we stepped back, admired, and photographed.  (Don't forget your safe word!)

Another lesson we've learned in our travels and in our fleamarketing close to home is that when you find something that speaks to you, buy it.  The alternative is spending the entire trip talking about it and looking for it in another shop, but you won't find it, or it won't be the same, or it will be more expensive. You'll also annoy the heck out of your partner (trust me) by talking about the nutcracker or nativity set or Polish stoneware piece that got away.  (Actually, they didn't get away, but more on those another time.)

We did travel quite a distance for this special Thanksgiving Christmasmarketing adventure and realized quickly and most appreciatively that we were in a beautifully historic city.  Never be afraid to soak up the sights in between fleamarketing adventures!  What would a visit to Vienna be, for example, without a stop at the Freud Museum?  Mari had probably hoped to get some insight from the experts regarding my collecting addiction, but finding a thrift store across the street

(I kid you not.)

didn't really help matters at all.  More on what we thrifted and Christmasmarketed next time.