If it's Saturday, this must be Austria (6/15)

We took an Uber from the Bratislava hotel to the train station this morning.  While I might have dragged the luggage up the hill to the station to save money, it worked out because we caught the 8:38 to Vienna and were there by 10.

Vienna Train Station

Two out of three ain't bad.  The hotel here is quite a step down from the previous two.  While it is close to the station, it is more of a hostel in the traditional sense in that the room is small, there's no AC, and we had to bring coffee cups up from the lounge for brushing our teeth.  I'll admit I was seduced by the low price--Vienna is the most expensive city for lodging on this trip.  Oh well, the room is clean and the hotel is close to the subway and a nice little pedestrian shopping area.

The first thing we did was buy our 48 hour subway pass for the Vienna U-Bahn.  It was about $30 for two tickets.  I know we'll get our money's worth.

The first thing we saw was St. Stephen's Cathedral in the center of town.  We took pictures outside at first then went to lunch and took inside photos later, but I'm putting them all here for clarity.

St. Stephen's Cathedral

St, Stephen's Cathedral (back)

Inside St. Stephen's

Triptych altarpiece commissioned by Frederick III in 1447

When you are travelling a well-worn path through a city and you want to get away from the Starbucks, the souvenir shops, the tour groups, and the guys trying to sell you sightseeing bus tickets, just turn off into a street (or better yet an alley).  Odds are you will be pleasantly surprised.

We did it and after walking about 100 m (110 yards), I heard running water.  I said to Fe, "That's either a fountain or a broken water main."  Luckily, it was a one of two fountains on either side of the entrance to the Austrian Academy of Sciences.

Fountain on the Austrian Academy of Sciences Building

After taking some pictures of this, we made a quarter-turn to the right a saw a church, The Jesuit Church of Vienna (also known as the University Church).  Compared to St. Stephens, it didn't have quite the same grandeur.

Jesuit Church

But inside....

Inside the Jesuit Church--note the different marble pillars along the side

Church ceiling

One of the alcoves

Church Organ

You can't tell from the earlier pictures because we edit them, but St. Stephen's was jammed with people.  No one was in the Jesuit Church and I'll bet a lot of people miss it.  

A few streets later we saw a statue to the inventor of the 15th Century's version of the Internet.  I'm talking of course, about Johannes Gutenberg--inventor of the printing press.   This statue was installed in 1900 to mark the 500th anniversary of his birth.

Fe is in this picture not only because of the high esteem with which I hold both her and Gutenberg, but also because she is covering up a guy who was sitting at the base of the statue and ruining the shot.

Tonight, dinner was in that shopping area I mentioned earlier.  A Turkish place called Tatlises.

We called it a day after that and did manage to get a few hours sleep in our stuffy room (another 90-degree day).  Tomorrow should be cooler, I see--only 80.