As a wistful teenager, with a yearning to know what more was “out there” and a desire to travel the world to finally be reunited with places that I’d never actually visited, I had a romantic notion of Vienna as a place where I could sit in opulent cafés, consuming endless amounts of hot chocolate and pastries. Turns out, there was something to that notion.
When my husband and I arrived at the Austrian capital earlier this month, we knew we wanted to visit the famed Christmas markets (Christkindlmärkte) but also expected we’d take in some architecture, some history and maybe even a little opera. However, one step into our first Christkindlmarkt and we knew we didn’t stand a chance against the magic of Vienna’s holiday festivities.