Morning in Vienna

The above photo is exactly my viewpoint as I write this, or more precisely, speak this. 

It is 7:52am and I am sitting outside of Starbucks looking at the backside of the Vienna Opera House. It is not as nice as the front side, which I'll go photograph a few hundred times when I'm ready to stand up. And tonight I'll see the inside when I attend a ballet of Don Quixote.

After I do my loop around the opera house, I think I might stop at the Sacher Café for a piece of Sacher torte, Vienna's famed chocolate cake. Seems as good a breakfast as any.

As should be obvious, I've arrived in Vienna without any major problems, though finding the right platform at the station in Kraków, schlepping my suitcase up the stairs to it and dealing with getting settled in a six person couchette, which was sweltering at first (before the train started moving) was a bit more arduous that I would have liked. And finding a taxi off the train in Vienna wasn't as easy as it should have been. 

But such is part of the story with European travel and all is good now. My hotel isn't glamorous but is a half block from where I sit so right down the street from the Opera House. And an easy walk to the Hofburg Palace, which is where I intend to spend most of my time today along with the main art museum, the Kunsthistorisches.

My first impression of Vienna is that there is much beauty here, but it is a much larger city than Krakow--along the lines of Paris and London--and therefore considerably more imposing.

But I expect to get my bearings shortly and with the day promising chocolate cake, a palace--the first of three--great art and a ballet, it shouldn't be too bad.