We all anticipated today, our first full day of sightseeing and touring the city. The day started early with an awesome breakfast spread at the hotel consisting of bread, cheese, and meat, but, most importantly, a personal pot of coffee. Satisfied and energized from breakfast we set off to meet our tour guide outside of the Albertina Museum. It was a beautiful morning and with sunshine greeting our anxious, glowing faces we started off on our tour. The tour could not have been neater; it provided us with a dose of historical background to the stunning buildings around each corner. I had a tough time keeping my mouth closed on the tour as we went from building to building, shocked by the beauty of the city.

The tour gave us just a glimpse of the city, so after lunch we were ready to delve deeper into a historical site. We started off big with St. Stephen’s Cathedral. The Romanesque and Gothic architecture made the whole cathedral seem surreal. Everything was ornate and had such detail that it just did not look real. However, the cathedral offered more than just its architecture. It had a rich, long history, part of which it literally still had in its depths: the catacombs. We were lucky enough to get a tour of the catacombs, where the remains of past Viennese continued to rest. I will not lie. It was a little creepy. Anyway, it capped off a great first day that left us in awe of Vienna.