4 Days in Vienna - A Family Experiment (Part 1/2)

Admittedly, the memories are no longer quite fresh. But I can't help that the last Easter I could travel with my family "free" was in 2019. "C…" (I don't like to call it) is to blame though.

I'm Olaf from the EasyCityPass team. My family and I spent 4 full days Vienna and every day I visit one of our partners - undercover and out of curiosity.

This is part 1 of a 2 part series.

Day 1 - Music Culture

Logically, the kids have always known, mom as a music teacher. If you make their heart beat faster right at the beginning, the vacation will be a piece of cake. To make a music teacher happy in Vienna is easy. The only the difficult decision: Strauss, Beethoven, Haydn, or Falco. In the end, our choice fell on Mozart. His residence, which is now a cute museum, is located just behind St. Stephen's Cathedral across from the entrance to Blutgasse, a wonderful name. Also worthwhile, with great big backyards and a small, fine bar with good wine.

Appropriate to Blutgasse is around the corner in the Domgasse is a wonderful, whimsical- creepy mask store. A visit there after the museum, I would strongly recommend as a motivator.

Keyword Domgasse - here it is, the Mozarthaus.

Photo: Stefanie Jost

For the historical greatness of the artist, it actually looks modest from the outside. However, it probably wasn't in his time. If one may believe the testimonies of the time, Mozart did not live here in "saus und braus".

The nice thing about this house is that you are not only informed in detail about his work, but you also learn something about the bourgeois life of that time. We liked the colorful mixture of visitors - it was a melting pot of cultures and age groups - wonderful.

The museum is a real recommendation for a visit with children and young people. It is informative, quite exciting, and is centrally located (no long distances and long discussions about why 😉). This is important - not too big and thus within the time frame of the cultural capacity of the youngsters, at least ours.

We as a family, by the way, had a very special ah-ha experience. In the middle of the visit, our children stopped in front of a display case longer than usual and eagerly discussed it.

There was an "ancient" model of a stage set that they knew. Mozart's Magic Flute was shown by the Berlin State Opera in 2018 in the stage design of the premiere version from Vienna in 1791. This happened to be the Christmas performance that we saw together as a family. Not only did we as the parents think it was great, apparently our offspring did too.

In short, we can recommend the Mozarthaus.

Day 2 - Sophisticated tombs, beautiful parks and famous people

We live - as always in Vienna - in the 7th district, near Neubaugasse. Here in the 7th district you can find nice restaurants and cool stores everywhere.

Today on the 2nd day we went to the 11th district with the combination of a subway and streetcar ride to the central cemetery. It is one of the largest in Europe and one of the most beautiful. This cemetery is next to Pere Lachaise in Paris and Westminster Abbey in London, also probably the largest celebrity density in the world. Vienna itself calls itself a place of rest and reflection. It is the only cemetery I know of that has its own bus line.

Bild: Olaf Luft

My family and I, had another reason to go out to the 11th district. Friends from Berlin run their stables here for their hackney carriage business. Of course we know that nowadays this is not undisputed nowadays. On site, we could convince ourselves about the good conditions for the horses - spacious stables, wide meadows, loving care and good feed.

Together with Walter and Frank (Frank Wulf Fiakerbetrieb), we went to the main entrance (gate 3), where the carriage stood ready and it set off.

There are whole websites full of whose graves you can see there - but this much should be revealed, as in the Mozart Museum, my wife was immediately in her element here - it feels like all the world's famous musicians of all eras are "at home" here.

A small tip: On foot we visited the old Jewish cemetery (Gate 1) - an enchanted world, magical.

In short: The Central Cemetery is a bit outside, who was here, knows more than most visitors to Vienna - a recommendation for the "second" visit to Vienna.

This was part 1 of a 2 part adventure through Vienna. Stay in touch for part 2.

Photo credits: Steffi Jost