sightseeing & day-excursions, Vienna

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Favorite thing: I appreciate, that you liked your stay here in Vienna, like many tourists coming to Vienna, who are very welcome! - please do not mind my open words re "touristy" or "less touristy" places.It is a fact, that -especially in Viennas city and / or the most frequented "Heurigen"-areas there are restaurants and expensive places, mostly frequented by tourists, - because they pretend to be "very local". So you can experience there a mix of "Austrian culture" from Mozart to "Edelweiss"as well as those austrian dishes, expected by most tourists coming to Austria. - Those places are mostly liked by the majority of tourists. In contrast there are some more quiet, less expensive and less "hip" places, mostly frequented by Austrians. I assumed, that you would prefer the latter.
As to your questions regarding the best lookouts to Vienna: if weather is fine, there are 2 superior places to be recommended:
1. The "Cobenzl- castle and -restaurant on top of one of the northern hills, surrounding the city of Vienna. Take U4 subway to Heiligenstadt, from there Bus 38A to Cobenzl. More infos on my Cobenzl-page !
2. Villa Aurora - a restaurant on Wilhelminenberg, the first northwestern hill overlooking thé city. Take U3-subway to Ottakring, from there Bus 46 B to Wilhelminenberg. More infos on my "Villa Aurora" or "Schloss Wilhelminenberg" - tips!
Have a nice stay and enjoy it!

Favorite thing: Today we did the tour with Vienna sightseeing to the woods and the underground lake. The underground lake is the largest in the world, pity that the ride was so short. It was quite cold down there. 9 degrees is the temp there all year round. We were not quite prepared for such cold weather. The cost of the tour was 49 Euro and I felt like I got my money worth from it.

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Favorite thing: Bratislava is very cheap but you need to have the right currency for some things - museum entries for example - our friendly graduate of the Rosa Krebs School of Charm at the Prelate's Palace made that perfectly clear. If you are in Bratislava at the weekend when the banks are closed, the Tesco store has an exchange office that will be open - and the girl there was delightful.

The unit of currency is the koruna. At the time of writing (October 2006) the exchange rate is approximately 30 koruna = us$1.

Don't change too much, you will find you will almost certainly have money left over at the end of the day. We changed $80 between four of us and even after we'd bought lunch and some beers, icecreams, coffee and a pile of nuts and dried fruit, visited the Prelate's Palace, left money in a donation box at the Cathedral, caught trams and paid for our train tickets back to Vienna, we still had money left over. We could have bought a trinket or two from the souvenir booths near the Town Hall, or caught one of the jolly open-topped red tourist buses around the city I suppose, but even then I think we wouldn't have spent it all.

Favorite thing: Kinsky Palace is a grand city mansion and is one of Vienna?s most impressive buildings in terms of art history. Built between 1713 and 1716 for Philipp Laurenz, it is a gem of baroque architecture which was hailed for its artistic finesse right from the outset. Michael (globetrott) showed it to us (me and Holger - HORSCHECK).

Favorite thing: The building of the university is situated near of Parliament and Rathaus. The building was built in 1873-1883 by Heinrich Ferstel in renessainsa style. This building is the main among other ones that university owns.

Favorite thing: Monument to Goethe, the famous German writer, is situated near of Hofburg Park and opposite Schiller Platz. Interesting thing is Goete haven't been to Vienna. In any way, the monument was placed in 1900. The interesting fact is the special comission gathered money but they needed 13 years that to get the exact ammount :-)

Favorite thing: Schillerplatz is a square that is situated in front of Fine Arts academy. There is a monument to Friedrich Schiller. It is the first bronze monument that was placed to not-army-person. The monument was built in 1876 by Iogann Schilling.

Favorite thing: Theophil Hansen created the parliament building, constructed from 1873 to 1883 in the style of the Greek Revival. Until 1918, the elected representatives serving in the Council of the Empire met here in legislative session for the Austrian half of the dual Austro-Hungarian Monarchy which extended from Galicia (now Polish and Ukrainian territory) all the way to Dalmatia (the Adriatic coast of modern-day Croatia). In modern Austria, this is the seat of both the National Council, the lower house of Austria's bicameral parliament whose representatives are elected by popular vote, and the Federal Council, whose members are chosen by the various states to serve in the upper house.