Visiting Vienna's many Christmas markets

Over Christmas we spent eight nights visiting Vienna and the Czech Republic. I'm a bit late in posting our trip reports because we took so many photos, and I've spent the last couple of weeks editing them.

We had an early flight out of Gatwick Airport on the Saturday before Christmas. We were taking two flights to get to Vienna, one from Gatwick to Dusseldorf and then from Dusseldorf to Vienna. We don't usually break up such short flights, but the flights over Christmas were so expensive, that we saved at least a hundred pounds each way by flying Lufthansa and stopping in Dusseldorf. 

It says a lot for the efficiency of Lufthansa and Dusseldorf that we were off the first plane and on the next plane ready for take-off within half an hour of landing.

Our main reason for visiting Vienna were the Christmas Markets. Vienna is extremely famous for their Christmas Markets, there are about 16 different markets spread over the city.

After dropping off our bags at the hotel, and changing clothes into something MUCH warmer, we headed out to find some markets.

The weather in Vienna was much colder than London, it hovered between -4 and 3 degrees the whole time we were there, and it was a very damp cold, with lots of fog, so it seemed a lot colder. 

Luckily before going, we stocked up on thermals, so we were well prepared. Can't actually believe we survived almost three London winter's without any thermals at all! We've barely taken them off since buying them, so luckily they're sweat resistant..

The first market we stopped at was the Maria Theresien Platz, between the Natural History Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts. It was a lovely market, in the square between the two buildings, but absolutely packed with people, so we headed up the road to the Weihnachtsmarkt am Spittelberg market.

This market was smaller, and wound through the small backstreets of Vienna. There were a lot more food stalls, so we stopped for a bratwurst and for a yummy looking Erdapfelpuffer, a fried potato cake that you can smear garlic on. They were so delicious that we promptly got another one so we didn't have to share!

Yum, Erdapfelpuffer!

After wandering around the Weihnachtsmarkt am Spittelberg for a while, we were starting to get pretty cold, so we headed into the Cafe Museum, which is famous for their delicious coffee and Apfel Strudel.

Vienna is well known for it's many coffee shops, and we made sure to sample a lot of them in the three days we were there! They are all open really late as well, the Cafe Museum is open until midnight, so we found ourselves stopping for a late night coffee while we were in the city. I think that's something that's missing in New Zealand and in the UK, late night coffee shops. Sometimes you just want a hot drink and a cake when you're out late at night!

Our last stop of the evening was at the Karlsplatz Christkindlmarkt, a great little market set in Resselpark in front of the Karlskirch, or St Charles Church. This market was full of homemade crafts, like jewellery, glass vases, clothing and lots of Christmas ornaments. There was also a farmyard in the middle where you could ride tiny horses. Or rather CHILDREN could ride tiny horses :(

Worn out by the cold night, we headed back to the hotel to have a hot shower and get into a warm bed!

We woke up early the next morning to a yummy breakfast provided by our hotel. They had individual glass jars full of muesli and yoghurt and they made us toasted sandwiches with little Austrian flags on top.

As we headed out into the grey Vienna morning, it looked like we were in for a day of rain. I didn't bring my gumboots or an umbrella, so we were pretty soaked through before we even got to our first market, our favourite, the Rathausplatz Markt. 

This Market was located in front of the Vienna town hall, the Rathaus, and the setting was beautiful. It was larger than the three others we had visited the day before with little streets of Christmas stalls.

Our very first purchase was a pair of extremely touristy umbrellas, and by the looks of it, it was the first purchase of a lot of other tourists. Feeling much happier about being out in the rain now we had some protection, we were able to wander around the market at more leisurely pace, even with still soaking wet boots.

Posing with my lovely umbrella

Gingerbread house!

Hofburg Palace, the former Imperial residence in Vienna

Not super impressed with the rain

Leaves covered in ice

We had a long lunch in a cafe next to the Hofburg Palace and took our time to try and dry ourselves out. We warmed ourselves up with beef sausages and goulash, with a coffee to finish of course!

We headed back to the hotel quite early since we were both wet and miserable, so we changed clothes and shoes, had a hot shower and stayed in the hotel until it was time to go out for dinner. We had a lot of mid afternoon hot showers over Christmas! Even with four or five layers on, the damp cold goes right through you.

We had dinner at the Cafe Museum, where we had stopped for a coffee the day before. Dinner was just as delicious as the coffee and strudel had been. I had beef and potatoes and Bradley had a burger and fries, just the thing for a cold winter's night. 

We followed up dinner with coffee topped with caramel and whipped cream, I think we had about three of four coffees a day while in Vienna. Needless to say we didn't get a great nights sleep on any of the nights!