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We arrived in Vienna late afternoon on thursday. Morale was being dampened by the weather, which was forecast rain for the rest of the day and Friday. We managed to find the hostel ok, hobbling from train to bus under fran's small brolly. The hostel was huge, ran by the hosteling international organisation. We didn't really like this as it wasn't as homely and felt a bit like you were on a school trip. We also got charged extra for not being members. The hostel was around 5 miles from the centre of Vienna, and we weren't really feeling like venturing in for the evening due to the rain. We (Fran) decided to have an "organisation night" in the hostel. We got snacks and sandwiches from the nearest supermarket and spent a good 3/4 hours booking hostels, searching for train times, budgeting and rearranging our route.
The next morning we were up early and ready for a full day of exploring Vienna. A rubbish continental breakfast of essentially bread and jam, and we were on our way, tackling the Vienna underground network. Luckily, the weather was a lot nicer, and stayed sunny for most of the day. We looked around the stephansdom, and also went to the top of it's tower, where we enjoyed fantastic views of the city, as well as a MASSIVE bell. We then wandered for about an hour or so around various parts of the city, in hunt of a nice cafe. We ended up settling for one near the national library. I opted for "Vienna sausages", forgetting my previous "currywurst" experience in Mayrhofen. They weren't great, and I was jealous of fran's toastie and chips.
Next we headed for the Judenplatz, where there was a holocaust memorial and museum. We decided against the museum in pursuit of going for a beer. We headed for the Rathausplatz, which housed the parliament building, the Rathaus and the burgtheater. We arrived here to find a film festival taking place, with lots of food and drinks stalls and full of people. We first had a wander round the beautiful surrounding gardens of the parliament and natural history museum. At one point on our wander, I decided that the big unoccupied horse statue ahead would make a good spot for sitting/a photo. Striding up to it, i noticed a man cycling towards me on my left. Clocking his path, i judged that he could easily carry on and ride behind me. However, he decided to keep heading for my path, to which i then slowed down, but no, it seemed he wanted to head for me. I stopped at the point where he braked to a halt. He then started shouting at me in german, got off of his bike and started pointing towards his prosthetic leg. I apologised, and went and sat down. He carried on shouting, now changing the direction of his anger to other passers by. In hindsight, i feel it may have been a tactic to try and get money out of us. Feeling a bit awkward, we then headed back to the festival. Several beers and wines later we made the journey back to the hostel, luckily with no one legged austrians chasing us.
The following morning we caught the train from Vienna Westbanhof to our next stop: Budapest!
Currently sat on the train listening to Ed sheeran while Fran snoozes.
Bean x
- comments
Gem I hope you apologised profusely for having two legs?! Strange...