Palaces and (more) sweet treats

Emma Phillips
Lauren and Emma in Europe
3 min readJan 18, 2019

We had our cake and ate it too.

We were so excited to wake up to more sun in Vienna! Just a short walk and a S-Bahn ride away from us was St. Stephen’s Cathedral. It sits right in the center of Vienna and we happened to walk in during a Wednesday morning service. It was so special to be able to walk around and listen to the hymns played on the massive organ. The inside was stunning as well, especially with the sun coming through the stained glass.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Schonbrunn Palace which was the summer residence of the Austrian Royalty. We only saw 20 rooms, which was a small part, but the inside was so ornate and beautiful (sorry we weren’t allowed to take pictures). The more impressive part of the palace was the garden and grounds behind it. At nearly two square kilometers, (happy converting!) the grounds boast of many fountains, obelisks and elaborate flower patterns (think Manito X 1,000). We were interested to learn that Marie Antoinette grew up here before she was married off to King Louis XVI as an act of peace from Austria to France.

Lauren and I on the back of the palace with the gardens behind us.
After much time outside, we were eager to warm up and quickly found a spot for a cup of tea and a hot chocolate (guess who got what). Lauren had a Black Forest cake and I had an Apfelstrudel.

We spent the next morning walking around Vienna’s museum quarter we walked through a lovely park and saw the Austria National Library. We opted to pop into the Schmetterling Haus (butterfly dome) to experience some greenery and some tropical weather.

We tried so hard to get butterflies to land on us so we could snap a pic but we started getting really sweaty so we had to bail.

We returned to Haas & Haas Teehaus for Viennese high tea later in the afternoon. We’d seen it on their menu when we were in for lunch previously and knew we had to come back! This tea was similar to most high teas, but instead of finger sandwiches, we had thick slices of bread with various toppings and spreads.

Our mango passionfruit green tea was paired with a sparkling Rosé.

We ended our time in Vienna with a sleeper train to Florence. This was a major bucket list item for me, and while we both got little to no sleep and the train was delayed four hours at the Austria/Italy border, the novelty of it was so much fun! We are so excited to be in Italy! More to come soon!

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