Day 5 (2025) - A Whole New (Caffeinated) World

Today was our first day in Vienna. The four of us arrived last night and Ethan arrived early in the morning. He got to the apartment around 10am and decided to take a little nap before our afternoon 4-hour walking tour. The tour guide I had hired was the one who gave an abbreviated tour to Amanda’s abroad group on their first day in Vienna. She liked him and thought he would give us a nice private tour. The tour was scheduled for 1pm, so while Ethan napped and Amanda attended class, Brian, Debbie and I did a little exploring on our own. 

Like Paris and its 20 arrondissements, Vienna is organized into 23 districts. We are staying in the 1st District, also known as the Innere Stadt, or Inner City. Most of the old historical buildings are located in the 1st District, as well as a lot of nice shopping. One of the things we were in search of in our little expedition was the “famous” hot dog stand that Debbie had heard so (so) much about from her parents. From their reports, the “hot dog stuffed in a bun” in the stand across from the Sacher Hotel was the best thing they have ever eaten in their lives – OK, maybe they didn’t sell it that hard, but they did make (many) a point to make sure we found that stand. However, according to Amanda, there are hot dog stands on every corner, and in our brief exploration we saw at least 2 on our way to the Sacher Hotel, which happened to be around the corner from our apartment.

None of the ones we saw seemed to fit the bill, until we walked a little past the Sacher Hotel and saw a stand that sure sounded like the one. We sauntered over and tried to figure out what to order (at around 11am no less) by watching what others were ordering. We saw a bunch of people getting cut up hot dogs, but then we finally saw someone with the hot dog stuffed in a bun. We went to order and basically pointed at the guy who just left with it and said we wanted two of those – one for Brian and one for Debbie and me to share. He asked if wanted it with cheese – and we said yes, as Eve had made a (strong) point that we had to get it with cheese. He also asked if we wanted mustard and we said yes to that as well.

Even though we had joked about the pressure to get one of these things, we all had to admit it was very tasty. But we felt that the guy had forgotten about the cheese, as we didn’t taste any cheese. Although we did taste a lot of pretty spicy mustard, especially when we got towards the end where a lot of mustard had congregated at the bottom of the bun.

Found it

A couple of hot dogs eating hot dogs

The three of us walked around for a bit, taking photos of buildings that looked interesting without really knowing what they were. Amanda met us back at the apartment around noon when her morning class was over and we got Ethan up from his nap. Once everyone was ready we headed to meet our tour guide, Michael, near the McDonald’s in the Karlsplatz U-Bahn station. I believe he picks this place for two reasons (a) it’s a busy station where many U-Bahn lines meet so anyone can get there easily and (b) there’s a public restroom right there. After finding Michael (took longer than expected because he was on the other side of the station from where we entered he asked if anyone needed the restroom and amazing no one, including myself, took him up on it. So out we went.

At this point, if I tried to recount everything we saw and everywhere he took us this blog post would be so much longer and detailed than I am prepared to write. Suffice it to say, we got our Euros worth on this tour. He showed us famous places, not so famous places and some places we never would have found had we not been on a private tour. He also spent considerable time at a Holocaust memorial explaining the relevance of it and why it was so important for this to be in Vienna. He did not know that we were Jewish, nor did we mention it, so I do believe he was just very sincere in his comments about the memorial. The memorial also happened to be pretty close to the hot dog stand from the morning. And remember how I said we took photos of things we really didn’t know about? Well, the memorial was one of them where we took a photo of Debbie smiling in front of an interesting statue. We just didn’t realize what it was at the time. Innocent mistake.

About three quarters of the way through the tour we stopped at a coffee house, one of many in Vienna, to rest and have a coffee. This was a momentous moment in the Volk family history. See, while I have coffee every day, and Brian drinks coffee and Ethan has an occasional coffee, Debbie does not and has never been a coffee drinker. But it was a little chilly out and we had been walking for almost 3 hours, so Debbie decided to adopt the “when in Rome” attitude and have a coffee as well. We asked Michael what kind of coffee was a typical Viennese coffee and he suggested the mélange so that’s what four of us ordered (Michael got a beer and Amanda some sort of fruity drink). When Debbie tried her coffee it was as if the world had been re-born in a whole new way. She really liked the coffee. 

The start of something...

A Sachertorte, but not THE Sachertorte
from The Sacher Hotel
(it was fair at best)

Later on in the tour, and after Amanda had to leave to get to her afternoon class, we passed a small little hole in the wall (quite literally, that’s all it was – a hole in the wall) that advertised itself as having Vienna’s most expensive coffee. We had to hold her back from getting it, as it appeared to be served in an ice cream cone. But she is determined to come back and get one!

Some of the many photos of the walking tour:

This is a replication of The Last Supper
but using tiny mosaic tiles

With our tour guide, Michael

Gonna come back here to see this clock do its thing

Another Holocaust memorial - books are backwards
to signify the knowledge lost with the loss of all of the Jews

We must have made a big impression already
for them to name a garden after us

President of Austria works here

Evidently this Mozart guy is big around here

Our 4-hour tour ended up being almost 4.5 hours and we finally bid Michael farewell and went back to the apartment for a short rest before we headed out to dinner. Tonight’s dinner was a place, Labstelle, that was on the itinerary of Ethan’s girlfriend’s parents when they visited Vienna recently. Although we found out later that they didn’t actually eat there as they were tired from their day. In doing my pre-trip research, I found a bunch of restaurants in Vienna and double booked each night and will choose which to keep the day before. Labstelle had a very different kind of menu so that was the place I opted for tonight.

The restaurant was near the apartment, so we made the 10 minute walk and got there right around our 7pm reservation time. When we got inside we were a little nervous because there were not a lot of people eating, which went against my mother’s “go where it’s crowded” advice. But we sat down and had a lovely dinner at what clearly was going to be our fanciest meal of the trip, considering all of the other places I have booked the rest of the way. The presentation and the food itself were outstanding, and we were glad we gave this place a shot.

After dinner we walked back to the apartment, including Amanda who brought a bag to stay with us, and we settled in for the night after a long day of touring and exploring.