Das ist mein schnitzel

I’m finishing this blog post while on a train from Vienna to Zurich. It is an incredibly picturesque train ride — we emerged from a long dark tunnel into a valley surrounded on either side by towering snow-covered mountains spread with white spruce, their branches drooping under the weight of the snow. The sky is cloudless and bright blue but everything else is white, bright white, and glistens where the sun falls. In the shadows of the mountains there are rows of wooden chalets, each triangular roof covered with a smooth layer of snow like a perfectly iced gingerbread house. The turquoise river below still flows although it must be ice cold.

Four weeks ago, we landed in Vienna to the first snow of the season falling over the city. It was a beautiful time to be there - in the lead up to Christmas, waking up in the mornings to a cover of powdery soft snow blanketing the city.

Vienna is quite far east, right at the edge of the Central European time zone, which means darkness arrives relatively early for its latitude. It can be hard to adjust to nightfall at 3.00pm, but it’s made easier when the city is adorned in sparkling Christmas lights. There were fairy lights draped over the branches of trees lining the streets, glowing stars in the shop windows, strings of lights cascading down the building façades and giant glowing red baubles hanging high above the streets, seemingly suspended in midair. With a layer of soft powdery snow, the city looked magical.

People come from all over the world to experience Vienna at Christmas time, and in particular, for the Christmas markets because they are some of the best in Europe. There are many different markets across the city and we must have visited at least 8 different ones, going back to a few of them multiple times.

Every Christmas market has stalls of food, crafts, hot punsch and glühwein (mulled wine) on offer, but they vary in size and each offers slightly different specialities.

The hot punsch and glühwein are served in ceramic mugs and each market has its own unique design for the mug. Part of the fun of going to different markets was finding out what that market’s mug design would look like.

The drink costs €8 with the mug included, but if you return the mug you receive €4 back, or else you can keep it. We ambitiously decided to keep four of our favourite designs so that we can recreate rum punsch and glühwein recipes at Christmas with our friends. They’re packed in our suitcases between bundles of clothes, along with little packets of cinnamon sticks, star anise and cloves. They probably won’t make it all the way back to Australia though unfortunately.

The largest Christmas market in Vienna is at the Rathaus (Town Hall). The first time we went to the Rathaus Christmas market was on our first weekend in Vienna when we met up with one of Dylan’s colleagues, Tim, his wife Rita and their little son for brunch and a city tour. We met them in the city centre for brunch and then they showed us around the main sights of the city.

At Rathaus, there are rows and rows of stalls selling a mouthwatering assortment of hot food, cakes, strudels, gingerbread cookies, Christmas baubles in every colour and shape, traditional crafts, jewellery, winter woollies, and all sorts of other knick knacks. And of course, many stalls with different flavours of hot punsch. Christmas lights hang criss-crossed above every row of stalls and all the trees are strung with lights. There is also a large ice rink, but instead of being a simple ring, it weaves frozen loops between the trees to make a winding path of ice all around the park. The grassy areas are decorated with child-sized candy canes and giant baubles and behind the towering Christmas tree adorned in large silver baubles was a large willow tree with bright red hearts hanging from its branches.

The Christmas market located closest to where we were staying was the one at the historic Belvedere Palace. At this market we discovered the Viennese hot dog. Rather than splitting the bread roll in half longways in the usual fashion, they stick one end of the roll on a metal skewer that puts a hot-dog-sized hole through the bread, without coming through the other end. Then they squirt mustard and ketchup down the hole and put the sausage in. Ingenious.

Despite the enjoyment we got from our regular Christmas market outings, we didn’t come to Vienna for the Christmas markets. We came for the schnitzel. Every time we ate out at a restaurant we ordered schnitzel. We tried all types: pork, chicken and the traditional wiener schnitzel, made from veal. One of our first was from the famous Figlmüller restaurant that has been serving traditional Viennese food for more than 110 years, including schnitzels that hang over the sides of your already oversized plate. We shared a schnitzel and the traditional lamb’s leaf potato salad.

We also participated in a schnitzel and kaiserschmarrn cooking class through Airbnb Experiences. We’ve really enjoyed doing Airbnb Experiences while we’ve been travelling as we get to meet locals, learn something about the place we’re staying in and have some company other than each other for a change!

We spent a great evening at a local lady’s house, along with two other tourists, to learn how to make proper schnitzel, traditional lamb’s leaf potato salad and kaiserschmarrn for dessert. It was a really fun night; we were only meant to be there until 9.00pm but ended up staying much later as we were all having such a great time. We got the recipes to take home and then over the course of our stay in Vienna, we made schnitzels at home a few more times for dinner. We even bought a meat tenderiser (and have packed it with us). And we wonder why our luggage is always growing…

During our time in Vienna Dylan was able to attend a few tech meet-ups in the evenings. One night I joined him for the Vienna Ruby meet-up, where instead of a normal meet-up, we all went to the Spittelberg Christmas market to drink punsch. This became one of our favourite Christmas markets — unlike most of the markets that are based on a square or open area, this one is set up among narrow winding streets and alleyways, lined with boutique shops, art galleries and bars. We met a bunch of people from all over who were either living in Vienna or visiting, and once drinking punsch outside in the cold became too much, we went into one of the bars where we stayed until after midnight.

We got talking to one guy about our schnitzel quest and so he invited us to go to his son’s favourite schnitzel place for lunch the next day. It was an old school restaurant called Otto, a little way out of the city centre, and was filled with elderly ladies having lunch. It was perfectly Austrian and the schnitzel was the best we had during our time in Vienna.

The restaurant was near Schönbrunn Palace, an impressive baroque palace that is one of the most important architectural, cultural, and historical monuments in Austria, being the main summer residence of the Habsburg rulers until the downfall of their monarchy in 1918. Since then, the palace and gardens have been owned by the Republic of Austria and preserved as a museum and tourist attraction. The pastel yellow palace and its surrounding gardens were beautiful.

Towards the end of our stay, just before we went to Sweden, Tim and Rita invited us over to their place for a dinner party with some of their friends. It was a rare moment on our travels to attend a dinner party. We enjoyed a home-cooked meal, discovered the most delicious dessert ever created (a chestnut cake from Aida), played charades, and drank too much wine. Dylan also went to a football game with Tim the following evening.

The game ended at nil all so it wasn’t so exciting from that perspective, but it was entertaining to watch the intensity of the Austrian football fans. There is an organised group that attends all games. Led by several conductors on podiums they sing their chants, make high pitch squeals when the other team are taking free kicks, let off fireworks (which is apparently banned but somehow make it into the stadium anyway) and during the opening of the game they pulled a massive banner down that stretched across an entire side of the stadium.

We really enjoyed our time in Vienna. Our apartment was great and we felt very comfortable there. However, it was the last long term stay that we have planned, which is strange for us as we normally have our next big location lined up. We’re in Switzerland for the next two weeks, moving around between Zurich, snowboarding in Zermatt and spending Christmas in St Gallen with friends from Australia. After that we head to Mexico for two weeks, after which we have nothing planned.

It’s a good feeling though — we can go anywhere.