We started our Wednesday by eating breakfast at Cafe Central. We had read that sometimes there were lines, but perhaps being the middle of the week in May helped us, as we were able to be seated right away. I had my normal breakfast of a croissant with marmalade and a latte. The marmalade here was cherry and amazing. Then we each picked a cake. I had the schokozauber, which was also wonderful. LS declared her choice of nuss kuss was “too sweet” so Mr. Strange happily finished it off.
We then headed to St. Stephen’s Cathedral. We purchased the all-inclusive tickets, which gives you access to the main area of the cathedral, both towers, the catacombs tour, and access to a separate treasury. Most people seemed content to come inside only to the gate, so there were only a few other people in the main area of the cathedral.
After we were done taking photos, we queued up for the catacombs tour, where unfortunately they did not allow photography. They led us below the cathedral and we passed through one room with jars of innards and another with tombs before getting to the areas with mass graves and bones. LS, previous lover of skeletons, said she did not like looking at bones. The tour was not very long and did not compare to the catacombs of Paris, but was interesting nonetheless.
We then headed up the elevator to the top of the north tower. It was quite windy but provided some nice views. We debating also doing the south tower, but it was stairs, and odds are, we’d end up having to carry the four year old, so decided against it. Overall, it could have been cheaper to purchase tickets to each thing we did separately since we didn’t do everything our tickets covered, but the convenience of the all inclusive ticket was nice.
We then headed to what LS had been excitedly talking about the whole trip: the Schmetterling Haus. LS loves butterflies. In fact, in anticipation of going to the butterfly house, she brought along her butterfly stuffy, somewhat ironically named Little Butterfly.
She. Was. In. Heaven.
“Butterflies are better than bones!” she proclaimed.
She desperately wanted a butterfly to land on her, so I instructed her to stand still like a statue. This didn’t work and after awhile, I could tell she was starting to get a little sad that her dream of having a butterfly land on her was fading. To help, we rubbed a bit of banana on her fingers and she held them up to a nearby blue morpho. This did the trick. The blue morpho happily hopped on, and a core memory was made. She was elated. She, of course, picked out another stuffy butterfly in the gift shop, which she named Flapper.
We discussed going to the Haus der Musik afterwards, but decided to take it easy instead. We stopped for a drink, then meandered around before ultimately ending up at a restaurant near our hotel, Bier and Bierli. Mr. Strange finally had some wiener schnitzel, while I ordered the käsespätzle (so good!). There was no kid’s menu, but they did have one kid-friendly offering: a plain schnitzel and fries with ketchup. To this point, LS had no interest in schnitzel but we figured she would eat the fries. To our surprise, she ended up not only trying the schnitzel but liking it! Our little picky eater had come a long way since the beginning of our trip. We also enjoyed the decor of this restaurant, which was covered in coasters, cans, and bottle caps. It was fun to look at all of them.
