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This morning we left our apartment at 8am and said goodbye to Csaba who walked us halfway to the station.
We went to Deli (Southern) Railway Station only to find out that we needed to be at Keleti (Eastern) Railway Station, seven stops away in the direction we'd just come from. We quickly hopped back on the metro and got to Keleti Station and made it just in time for the 9:10 train to Vienna.
This was a great train, new and modern, we were very comfortable in our leather seats, with power points and a food cart we enjoyed our 3hr train ride and hoped that the next train would be more like this one.
We got into Vienna and checked into our hostel by 12:30, it was only a few hundred meters from the station. Another of the ones that made the list of Europes Top Ten hostels, this was clean and modern. The lady at the desk kindly gave us a free upgrade to an apartment as it was available at the time, we've been lucky along the way, traveling outside the peak has worked extremely well for us. This one was as good as the last, if not, better. It has recently been upgraded with hardwood floors, balcony, nice bathroom and kitchen.
After settling into our new home, we headed out for a bit of a wander around. We headed for the Schloss Schönbrunn, a summer palace of the Habsburg Royalty. We walked around the perfectly manicured Crown Prince Gardens before hiking up the hill to the ornamental Gloriette, where we had a fantastic view of the palace. On the way back down we came across a fantastic playground and decided to be kids again. Funny mirrors, speaker tubes, climbing things and best of all.... A maze and labyrinth, our greatest opportunity yet to lose each other.
From here it was a brisk walk home to rug up for a night in the city center. We took the U3 (Underground line 3) from Westbahnhf to Stephansplatz, the centre of the city. Once out of the station we came across St Stephan's Cathedral (Steohansdom) which stands in the heart of the town square and is a major drawcard for tourists. Our aim was to find food and so we headed away from the centre as it seemed to be occupied mainly by retail outlets, there were a small number of cafés but many of those seemed to be closed.
We have enjoyed seeing cities at night as most of them take advantage of their beautiful monuments and buildings by illuminating them with strategically placed and directed lights, these make them look simply stunning.
Our nightime walk around the city saw us taking in The Imperial Palace, The Museum Quarter including the Museum of fine arts, Museum of natural history, Parliament, City hall and many others as we wandered around. Finally with the grumbling in our tummies getting the better of us we managed to find a great place to eat. It was a vegetarian restaurant where you served yourself from the buffet and paid based on the weight of your dish. Simply take your plate to the register, put it on the scales and pay (of course the weight of the actual plate is taken off), all up we fed us both for around €15.
On the walk back towards the U station we could here music coming from a nearby park, intrigued we poked our noses in for a look and found a festival marquee with a live band. We hung around for a few songs, soaking in the atmosphere as the locals danced and sang to the classic 80's&90's cover band.
The day ended with the short train ride back to the hostel where we could unwind and try to get up to date with all our photo's and blogs while we worked out a plan for the next day.
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