Day 9: Vienna.
Another day, another country.
This morning was a slightly later start than usual with me getting to the station to catch the 9:46 train to Vienna. The train was my shortest journey yet, taking just over an hour. Unfortunately it was during this hour that I realised I managed to leave my memory card in the hostel's laptop after last night's mass upload of photos to Facebook. I phoned the hostel though and they are going to post it home for me. Luckily I brought 4 extra ones with me so I can carry on being trigger happy with my camera. Anyway, enough about that slight hiccup. When I got to Vienna's south station I found out from the information desk that I could get a local bus to my hostel (as the station was quite a bit further out of the city from where I was staying). The bus was easy enough to navigate, and I had managed to pick up a map of Vienna in Prague (bit random), so I found my hostel easily. This one is probably one of the biggest I have stayed in and is vey close to the city centre (it also seems to be currently occupied by a lot of school trips). I'm staying in a 6 person room with 2 Japanese girls, a German woman and a girl I have yet to meet. After quickly putting away my things, and making my bed for the 6th time, I headed out to explore the city.
Vienna is probably one of the biggest cities I have visited on this trip, though most of the tourist sights are located within a central ring. I walked around the streets for a bit looking for somewhere to eat, finally settilng on a little bistro. For today's meal I ordered Austria's version of the schnitzel (not as nice as the German one if I am honest). After re-fuelling I headed over to the Hofburg and the Spanish Riding School. The Hofburg is on the edge of the central ring and is made up of loads of inter joining palace buildings (most of which are now museums). It's quite nice walking around outside (even though it's been drizzling all day). Because it's the home to probably the most famous horses and riders in the world I decided to take a tour of the Spanish Riding School (unfortunately a performance costs too much for my budget). The hour long tour was really interesting and we got to see the training ring, stables (complete with those famous Lippizaner stallions) and the performance ring (which is where my picture is taken). During the tour I learnt that not all the horses are white (they all actually start off grey and get lighter with age), but occasionally they can get a brown Lippizaner. Because the brown ones are so rare now they always have at least one at the stables as a good luck charm. I really enjoyed my tour, and although I didn't get to see them perform, it was still interesting to actually see the horses and where they perform. After my tour, since it was late and raining quite heavily, I decided to head back to the hostel for an early night, and to plan tomorrow's sightseeing.
So there you have my first day in Austria's capital. Even though it has been raining for most of the day, it's still a nice city, with lots of history and culture.
More sightseeing tomorrow. Watch this space.
Lois x