10/12/22, Day 2, Old Town

Each day after we got off Tram#D at Oper/Karlsplatz, this was the view that greeted us.
The State Opera was in front of us across the street. We'd turn immediately right to Kärntner Straße.

Kärntner Straße between the State Opera and St. Stephens is pedestrian-only except for the block where the State Opera is.
We saw 2 McDonald's, 1 Burger King, and 1 Nordsee restaurant.
These international fast-food chains were not here in 2000.

Stephens platz (platz = plaza, square), a tourist's magnet.

St. Stephen's Cathedral.
All the distances to Vienna are measured from here.
The doorway and the twin towers at the west end were remains of the original 13th-century Romanesque church.
The rest were rebuilt in the 14th and 15th centuries.
This is the big church which elevated Vienna from a rural village into an important pilgrimage stop during the Middle Ages.

Inside the St. Stephen's Cathedral.
Joseph Hayden sang as a choir boy, and Mozart married his wife Constanze in this church in 1782.

The Drei (meaning "3") mobile phone store was just opposite the St. Stephen's Cathedral.

We bought a 10GB SIM card for MC's iPhone at €15, registered and activated.
(If your iPhone is locked to your mobile provider's frequency at home, you must request it
to be unlocked before leaving home, in order for it to work with a foreign SIM card.)

Turning right after passing the cathedral, we went to
take a look at Hotel Konig von Ungarn, the hotel we stayed in 2000.

The exterior of the hotel today.
It looks the same as from 22 years ago.

This is our picture of the hotel from the year 2000.
The charcoal-colored building in the middle with a plaque on the 2nd floor exterior wall
is the Mozart museum where Mozart lived and composed the Marriage of Figaro.

We went to visit the Mozart Museum.
The entrance is in the back alley, Domgasse 5.

The admission ticket came with an audio guide.
Mozart was very successful at that time to afford such a spacious apartment.

Julius Meinl am Graben, a high-end gourmet food store with a café and sushi bar.
(The Cartier across the street had a line of shoppers waiting to be let in.
I think they only allowed a max of x number of shoppers in the store at one time.)

Inside Julius Meinl am Graben. It goes very deep in the back, and also has a 2nd floor.
Many ready-to-go food you may take out to eat at home.

We had sushi lunch at Julius Meinl am Graben.
We were careful not to eat too much raw fish on our first day in town.

Inside the ornate St. Peter’s Church for a 3 pm organ concert.

Kohlmarkt, the high-end shopping street in the old town.
The green-domed building down the street is a part of the Habsburgs complex at the Michaelerplatz.

A wing of the Habsburgs complex at the historical Michaelerplatz.

The Tram#D stop at Oper/Karlsplatz where we waited for a tram
to go back to the Adina hotel. It was just across the Opernring from Vienna State Opera.

And this front facade of the opera house was the view we looked at everyday when
waiting for a Tram D to go back to the hotel.