Winter in Wonderland

(Vienna, 2010)

Aaaaaaaaaaand winter has finally arrived! Not that I was hopelessly waiting for it, but, again, no one asked me. In fact, things arrange themselves in the most convenient way for the frenzy mischiefs in my head (did I mention how ironical life is?!) – no piece of snowflake during the holidays (8 degrees plus where I spend my New Year’s Eve) and now humps of snow everywhere around because, of course, on Monday I start working and I have to walk like 15 minutes on a horrible, gradient, back road every day. But again, life’s not all about complaining (and that’s just another mental resolution for 2012) and here’s what the weather outside reminded me of.

Last year I had an amazing winter. A six day winter in Wonderland, I may say! The weather outside perfectly fitted the picture and the temperature up to minus 14 degrees was almost off the point. Before leaving for this mini trip, I’ve read somewhere on a blog that winter holidays are so amazing in Vienna, that you simply cannot feel the cold outside or any other external negative factor that could affect its perfection. The guy was saying that you can aimlessly walk for hours in the frozen wind with your feet almost stuck in the chill snow, with a cup of hot wine in your hands and get lost in a wonderful winter story tale. I was quite skeptical, I couldn’t imagine a more beautiful panorama of Vienna than the one I have seen in the previous summer. Now I cannot simply decide whether Vienna is at its best during winter time, or during summer time. Nevertheless, coming back in autumn is on my priorities’ list!

Usually I am fairly organized when coming to such short trips, because I want to see as many things as possible. This time, I simply couldn’t believe myself, but I let aside all the plans I had in mind and just strolled for half a day (only this short we’ve stayed there) without using any maps and having no destination in mind, making use only of the blurred memories I had from the previous year upon street organization and important sights. And it was wonderful. I admired the famous Ringstraße almost buried in snow, I’ve seen the colourful Hundertwasser House which was on my to-see list for long, eaten in a cheap Korean fast food, walked, admired the decorations and the window stores on the main street, travelled by tram and metro, played with the ducks on a frozen lake, screamed and ran in the snow and it couldn’t have felt better!

     

It goes without saying that the best part was the Christmas market in front of the Rathaus, a joyous, bright place which spread magic, exhilaration and feast all around. As Dorothy would say, “There’s no Christmas like Christmas in Vienna!” and I couldn’t argue with her on that one!

Have you ever been to Vienna?
When do you think it's more beautiful, during summer time or during winter time?
Happy winter days to all!