Vienna may be one of the hardest places we will have to write about in Europe. It's the capital city of Austria and it houses a summer place for royalty, museums gallor and large imposing state buildings and statues. It's also home to the UN and is a big business hub of Austria. But Vienna is also on the migrant route of access into the Europe from Greece, Turkey and other locations. In the news it was one of the train stations over run with migrants trying to board trains into Germany and the rest of Europe. Everyone reading this will have their own opinion about the migrants coming into Europe and the UK, its a hard topic to discuss and find a solution for. But we were shocked by what we saw in Vienna and we realised that being in the UK you don't really 'see' what's going on in Europe.

We arrived by train and boarded a metro to WestBanhof station, from here it was a 10 minutes walk to our hostel. Arriving at dusk has its negatives, as we felt in Salzburg. But as we exited the station we noticed a lot of men hanging around, mainly drinking cans in small groups, it wasn't as if they were off on a night out. This immediately put us on edge, men drinking in small groups in the dark isn't exactly a welcoming sign. We vowed that we wouldn't be stepping out at night time in this area. We wondered whether it was homeless locals, migrants, young men or even if it was a cultural thing to do. There was a lack of any police or official personal to control the situation. On closer inspection during the day and in the afternoon we noted that it was a collection of migrant men and local homeless people.

During our stay in Vienna we spotted lots of beggars, mostly men, sitting with signs, begging at car windows or even approaching you at ticket machines. It was very overwhelming, just like Asia we had the problem of sorting the needy from the opportunists. We began to feel alittle unsafe, we noticed the men watching us and our bags, locals would clutch onto their things and move away in some occasions. On the metro men would board the train in groups and split up along the carriage moving around slowly. It wasn't just migrants it was a mixture of people, but mainly men in dirty clothes. However we did see a few locals giving beggars food instead of money, which seemed the thing to do and most of them seemed happy to receive it. The hard fact that we realised is that with all the thousands of migrants who have travelled over to Europe you can't be sure that every person is here for the same reasons with a good conscience. These individuals who are making us feel unsafe and who have been in the news for committing crimes are ruining our perception of migrants and are fueling the discrimination against them. In the crowds of people there will be individuals who have come from war torn countries like Syria needing help and shelter. But there will also be people who seem to be abusing this. There doesn't seem to be a easy solution to the situation and its been hard for us to see the truth, we can't just let everyone into the country.

Moving on from this we did venture to the tourist spots of the city. Number one on every list of activities for Vienna is the Schonbrunn Palace, it was a summer home to the royalty of Austria. The building itself reminded Nicole of a Playmobile mansion. We paid €12 each to explore the inside of the palace and were sadly disapointed. Although the rooms were grand, they were all so similar and fully restored. It felt like a theme park the way you were organised to go round and how immaculate everything was. Compared to the National Trust properties it did not feel worth the €24 we paid to see around 10 similar, fully restored sealed off rooms. However,if you've not explored any historical buildings before we are sure you'd have a completely different experience. We did get to learn alittle about a few royal characters of Austria.

We spent the remainder of the day in the city centre, when after purchasing soup at an expensive cafe and not coffee as it was a rip off, we finally found the reason people come to Vienna. If it isn't for the opera its definitely for the buildings in the Ringstrasse. A huge courtyard of grand buildings and statues with a garden in the middle. We are sure at one time they would have all been government buildings, now they are mostly museums. It reminded us slightly of London with its own grand buildings spread out over the city. We stopped for an apple and a drink on a park bench as we watched the locals get on with their daily lives.

Austria has been a very interesting country for us to visit, its not a place we had thought about travelling to before and we really didn't know what to expect. But we have loved meeting up with family, seeing the mountains and exploring the towns. Onto Bratislava next, our wildcard!