Last June I experienced for three weeks how’s like to live in Vienna. And I loved it.
Franz and I went in Vienna to attend WordCamp Europe 2016, but opted to move there a couple of weeks before the event, just to feel the daily vibes and explore the city. Turned out we fell in love with the city, and we’d love to live in Vienna.
What Vienna looks like
Vienna is definitely not a minimalistic city. The architecture is magnificent and rich, as well as complicated. You will never have enough eyes in Vienna to see all the amazing stuff that surround you.
The ancient, gothic style is mixed with modern buildings. Train stations are modern and functional, and the infrastructure is super efficient.
We went to Schönbrunn, and I’m not ashamed to say that a little piece of my heart remained there, trapped among its gardens and labyrinths. We climbed the hill facing the palace and arrived at Gloriette, where we ruled the gardens and enjoyed a magnificent panorama. Simply wonderful.
The people
Viennese are from all over the world. We met many Austrian people as well as ex-pats. In fact, it looks like nearly 50% of the people living in Vienna come from abroad.
That also explains why Viennese people speak a very good English and have no trouble in switching to German to English within a blink of an eye.
It’s not so difficult, therefore, to live in Vienna without knowing any German and have no problem at all by any means. They do appreciate if you can try to speak German, though!
The food
Schnitzel! Yeah, we did eat a shameful amount of the most traditional and popular Viennese dish. We tried the veal and the pork schnitzels, and eventually we decided that the veal schnitzel is superior.
We didn’t feel guilty about that – we ate them in the name of the scientific method, somebody had to make a stand and decide what the best schnitzel was.
We also tried the Hungarian cuisine when we were in Vienna, and I set my next trip to be in Hungary just because of the amazing food I tasted. Goulash for the win!
Supermarkets food, goodies and products are slightly more expensive than in the UK. The quality of the food is better than in London though, especially as far as the meat is concerned. We didn’t find, however, much variety in terms of wholemeal products, and most of them were very expensive.
We also missed a lot the basmati rice, sweet potato and some other food we often have in London. Since they are not popular in Austria (as far as we saw) they’re not easy to find, nor cheap to buy.
Weather
Despite the UK “summer”, we enjoyed a real summer, with hot temperatures and dry weather. Only once did it rain, and the day we left the city, Vienna farewelled us with a torrential storm. Was it a signal, like that we needed to stay in the city and live in Vienna for good, instead?
Summing up
We enjoyed our three weeks in Austria, we truly had a wonderful time there. We explored the city, and thought about the option of relocating in there. As far as my experience concerns, I’d suggest anyone to live in Vienna for a while, as it’s such a welcoming and nice city.
Probably, the only real problem is the language barrier, if looking at that in a long-time perspective. Although we had no problems in communicating with people, I reckon that if someone moves there to actually live in Vienna for an undetermined amount of time, a decent level of German is required, at least to avoid being cutting out from the day-by-day national and city events.
If you are wondering if Franz and I are moving out of the UK to live in Vienna… well, the answer is no, we are not. With that said, maybe one day… ;)
More pics of Vienna are in my Instagram account and on Snapchat (stefmattana)
I absolutely love that city, too. :-)
Hehe, I know you have a soft spot for Vienna, somehow, Christoph ;)
Beautiful city. Nice share!
It is, isn’t it! Thanks for stopping by!
I love that you immersed yourself in the city. I’m also jealous, but that’s another story… LOL, great post!
Thanks! I’m sure you have some funny and interesting story quite similar to mine :)
Your blogs are so fun! Thanks for sharing your view of the world as you enjoy your travels, tasty food. and writings. Cheers!
Thanks, my darling! You know I love your blog too xx
Several years ago I visited Europe for a friend’s wedding. I went to Budapest first and really enjoyed it. I wish we had spent more time there as one of our days was a Monday and many places were closed. Vienna was probably my least favorite stop. It was too modern and felt like any other big city. We were there the shortest amount of time too so maybe we tried to cram too much into our Vienna days. I did love the street music. Not many places you can see a twenty piece orchestra in the middle of the street. Vienna was also the least English friendly. In Budapest everything was in English and Prague (our last stop of the trip) was pretty English friendly. I loved Prague. It is beautiful.
Donna, you should definitely come back and give Vienna another go! It looks like the city is way different compared to the Vienna you visited a while ago ;)
I’m sure you’re going to love it!
There was a lot of construction going on. Our train came into a temporary station a few miles away from the real station. Thankfully a couple helped us find the right subway to get to our hostel. The people we interacted with were great. The waitress at one restuarant where we had dinner probably thought we were a bit crazy. We were trying to guess what signs said (we might have had a bit too much to drink) and then we would ask her what it actually said. She wanted to practice her English so she didn’t mind too much (at least I hope). We left a nice tip.
Hahaha! That’s a really funny story!