Europe Trip: Day 13, June 2nd

I spent the morning and early afternoon trying to do some planning, but eventually I headed out the door. The plan was to see some of the big churches, maybe climb to the top of one or two, and then wander around a bit in Vienna trying to find this coffee shop that Julius had said he thought was the best in the city.

The first stop was at Karlsplatz, and it was surprisingly easy to find Karlskirche. It had a very interesting look with the green copper dome and two large pillars in the front that had carvings or detailed pictures all over them.

The entrance was on the right side, and it was something like 4 euros to take the elevator and then walk up some rickety scaffolding that served as stairs to the top of the dome. Unfortunately there wasn't much of a view of the outside city, but there was a closeup view of the beautiful paintings on the inside dome.

I took a break then in the park outside the church, just lazing about for an hour or so. Then I jumped on the U-bahn and headed for the city center, Stephansplatz.

It turns out that I got there a little bit too late to climb to the top of the big tower at Stephansdom, it closed at 5:30pm and I got there at like 5:45-6pm. So I decided to wander in what I thought was the correct direction, but as I got further from the center of the city I realized I had chosen incorrectly. Nonetheless it was interesting to see new parts of the city.

I ended up going into this bar where I got a drink and had a schnitzel -- much cheaper than at the other place the day before, but still not bad. It was funny since some of the guys looked a bit 80's and they played quite a bit of American music like the Rolling Stones. Tennis was on TV so I watched that, rooting for Federer even though he was down 2 sets to nothing. Amazingly he made a comeback and won it 3 sets to 2!

I was a little bit worried about where I was since I hadn't seen any U-bahn stations, but I found my way to a major street and after about 5 minutes I saw the sign and then a couple connections later I was back home (at least my current one).

We watched a Futurama movie, which was actually very funny. I might have to watch some more of it when I get back to the States.