18. Vienna, Austria

The Journey

My wife Tricia and daughter Anna had planned to join me for the weekend in Vienna, at what was the halfway point of my month-long trip. None of us had ever been to the city before. I arrived by train from Prague in the mid afternoon, while they arrived on a Ryanair flight from Dublin to Vienna airport in the early evening. We all met up at the home exchange apartment. My train journey on CD Railways took just over four and a half hours.

The Accommodation

Martina's spacious two bed apartment was perfect for our needs. We were lucky to get it for GuestPoints on HomeExchange. We didn't meet Martina, as she was treking in Nepal. She sent us superb, detailed instructions for getting to the apartment from the central HbF station and from the airport, in addition to brilliant step-by-step photos of how to get into the apartment. She was obviously a seasoned traveller. 

The apartment was tastefully decorated and was a very relaxing space. It was amazingly quiet with a balcony overlooking a courtyard. There was a supermarket on the ground floor and several trams to the city centre passed directly in front of the apartment. It was really close to one of the top sites, Schönbrunn Palace and an easy walk to Vienna Woods.

Our first meal on Friday evening was in a local Italian restaurant called Casa Mia, just 5 minutes from the apartment which was handy as none of us wanted to travel too far. 

Italian is Anna's favourite food, so we indulged her for the first night, the Weiner Schnitzel and Sachertorte could wait!

 

Day 2 

The next day we got a combination of the 17 tram and the U3 u-bahn to travel into the centre and emerged into Stefansplatz which was basking in 23 degrees C. The city travel app was very easy to use and is a model of good design. 

The weather was so lovely, that we just spent the day strolling around, looking in shop windows, having coffee, people watching and generally relaxing. As I had spent a lot of time on walking tours in both Berlin and Prague, I intended to take things at a much more relaxed pace here in Vienna and basically enjoy the city as a family, rather than as a tourist. I didn't book any walking tours and just decided to let things happen at their own pace.  

Dinner was in one of the large shopping malls that Anna was somehow drawn towards! I was looking for a place with high stools and tables as my back was giving me bother (more of that later) and we found a very interesting burger place with lots of unusual offerings. 

The next day Anna and Tricia were forced to go sightseeing on their own as unfortunately I had to rest in bed with a bad back! Full details in the next blog post for those interested, but in the meantime here is some of what I missed on their sightseeing tour.

As I wasn't on the tour bus, I cannot name these buildings or say how significant they are in the city. Both Tricia and Anna were very underwhelmed with the bus tour that they took. For a start they said it was too long, I think they said it lasted three hours. The running commentary was bland and boring and they were taken to see too many historical buildings that ended up looking the same. Too many minor historical figures were mentioned that they didn't know and Anna grew so bored that she fell asleep for the final 30 minutes!

Suffice to say that they show a wealth of history and a varied architecture. 

I will write more on my back troubles in the next post, but to cut a long story short for the moment, I had to cancel the final two weeks of my trip and travel home. We all departed from Vienna together the next day. I was able to get a seat on the same flight to Dublin as Anna and Tricia. Thus ended my Interrail trip two weeks early, with two weeks done, and two more still to do. 

 

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