I've put off writing this post for a few days, because I wanted to give Vienna a fair chance to change my first impression and I didn't want to write a completely negative post. However, after 3 full days of doing nearly everything the guidebooks suggested and then some, I just don't enjoy Vienna.
It's not that there's nothing nice about Vienna. There are certainly plenty of pretty buildings and churches. The big problem, though, is that it's really hard to see them. The city is set out in a way that everything is fairly close together with few open spaces, so it is nearly impossible to get an unobstructed view of anything. Making matters worse is the fact that half of the city seems to be under construction, so there is scaffolding everywhere, covering up the few unobstructed views you might have.
The two notable exceptions are Vienna's two palaces with grand gardens and grounds. The Belevedere is smaller and closer to the center of the city, and was a welcome break from the clutter, being the first open space we really came across.
The larger palace, Schloss Schoenbrunn, is further outside the city center and well worth the trip. The palace grounds are truly stunning.
The other neat thing that we found in Vienna is that the State Opera House on certain nights will broadcast a live feed of the opera going on inside on a huge screen mounted on the side of the opera house so the public can sit outside and watch. The combination of the palaces and the opera would make for a nice 1 or 2 day trip to the city. There are enough things to make for a beautiful photo album.
What Vienna lacks, at least in my opinion, is personality. And fun. It's almost as if the city and its people don't understand the concept of fun. In three days (including Friday and Saturday nights), I've seen no smiling, no laughing, no dancing. People seem to just be going about their lives, and it's not that they are mean or angry, but I can't think of a single person I've seen who looked like he or she was having fun. I even ventured out to the amusement park in the city because I figured, if people are going to be having fun anywhere it would have to be at the amusement park, right? Wrong. No fun. No smiling or laughing or screaming like you might expect. Even the children were somber and subdued. And nightlife appears to be non-existent. We tried and failed on both Friday and Saturday nights to find places (not even fun places, just any places) to hang out and have a good time. The only options appear to be a couple of giant Euro-German club parties or a quiet dinner and bed. Eventually we just gave up - constantly searching for fun that doesn't exist sucks the life out of you and makes you just not want to have fun any more. It's so hard for me to believe that Salzburg and Vienna exist in the same country.
Going hand in hand with the no fun factor, Vienna takes its rules very seriously. Everywhere you turn you are faced with a "don't step on the grass" sign, and people will not cross a street if there is a don't walk sign, even if the street is all of six paces wide and there is not a car in sight for miles. And another note on crosswalks - I don't understand what Vienna has against putting them on all four streets of a given street corner. Many times there are only three crosswalks on a corner, meaning that you have to actually cross 3 streets to get to the corner right across the street if you are unlucky enough to want to go across the one street without a crosswalk (which more often than not I have been). Worse yet are the corners that only have 2 crosswalks - the only options here are to walk blocks out of the way just to cross the street or risk it and jaywalk. Maybe this is part of the reason no one here seems to be having fun.
To try to escape my Vienna blahs, I've decided to take a day trip tomorrow to Bratislava in Slovakia, just a short trip up the Danube by boat. Hopefully the change of scenery will be a good thing. And who knows, maybe they even have fun in Bratislava...
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