A lot of Saturday

I was sorely tempted to wait on this until tomorrow too, but I didn't want to do that again.  Bad habits and whatnot.  It was a long day today, piggybacking off of the extremely long day yesterday.  I did get up a bit later than I wanted to this morning, the morning of the Nachsmarkt flea market.  It really does start around 6:30am, I was hoping to get there around an hour after that. 

Yeahhhhhhhhhh...nope.  Woke up around 9 as my body was just tired off getting 6 hours of sleep a night.  I decided to skip breakfast and have it there (including coffee).  Got there about an hour later only to find a madhouse!

It was also colder than the last couple of days, which you would think would keep people in their own warm homes.  Austrians are made of sterner stuff.  I did walk around to all the tables and actually bought a couple of small pieces of jewelry and Hungarian cookies (like Oma used to make).

I had lunch, then headed back to the room to unload and freshen up.  I decided to go to the Christmas market at Stephansdom. To get there, I had to walk through the main shopping district of Kaertnerstrasse.  Everything is decorated to the hilt with different types of lights above every section of street.  

Finally turned the corner to see the Cathedral (one of my favorites) and the market alongside it.

The booths are all cute little cookie cutter cabins with rope light designs above them.  However, the vendors weren't too different from St. Theresen Place.  I wandered around a bit, checking out both booths and shops.

I did get there kind of later, so the Cathedral wasn't open anymore.  Kind of a bummer, it's really cool inside.  There are some photos on my blog post from my last visit in 2012

It did look really pretty at night, which I had not seen previously.

Of course, the horses were there on the other side of the Cathedral and were pretty picturesque for this time of the year.  

I ended up having a giant potato pancake with applesauce and jam (after noticing an elderly lady order it).  Having food in my tummy, I had my first gluhwein of the day.   I then decided to wander around the shopping district and found another Christmas Market by accident. 

It was a tiny, cute little market called the KUK Weihnachtsmarkt at Michaelerplatz.  There weren't a lot of booths, but they were cute and decorated in a very formal old Viennese manner.   

Another market means another gluhwein!  This cute little market was not nearly so crowded and crazy, so I was easily able to find a park bench to sit on for a bit.  After finishing my drink, I was back to the shopping district to do some real and window shopping.

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Only in Vienna would you find the streets decorated with enormous crystal chandeliers.   This is the posh part of the area where you find designer shops like Fendi, Gucci, Prada, Louis Vuitton...in other words, nothing I can afford.

I did find a couple of shops on a different street where I bought some necessities (running out of bath wash!) and makeup...because...duh!

Found this little Krampus during my window shopping the many, many confectioners.

At this point I was dead tired and a bit buzzed from the wine (yes, I am a lightweight), so I decided to head back.

Found an entire store wrapped up in a bow!

I got back, had a snack of bread, cheese, olives, and smoked duck (I really need to get some wine).  Did laundry and edited my photos.   Now, here we are. 

I think I'll try to do the REALLY big market tomorrow and get it out of the way.  But I am gonna sleep late.   Just sayin'