Vienna

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Friday

Vienna - the capital of Austria.
We arrived in Vienna at about midday, and by the time we found the Hostel and settled down, it was about 3pm.. The weather in Vienna was much better than Prague - at least the sun was out!
To introduce ourselves to Vienna, we signed up for a Friday NiteRide guided bike tour! It was great - they took us to all the tourist sights and Palaces around town, then we they took us to a very old wine cellar under the historical part of town for an Austrian wine sample. The wine was okay I guess - I'm not one to judge wines though, but the ride back to the office was fun! Lucky we had a guide to follow - riding on the right hand side of the road is hard enough without being slightly under the influence.

Saturday

I love bike riding soo much that on Saturday, we went back to the tour office and grabbed a couple of bikes for the day to ride around and do our own thing.
Our first stop was the Schönbrunn Palace. This was the summer residence of the Habsburg Monarchs until the early 1900s i think. The Palace is massive, with gardens that would make Don Burke freak out. It even has its own zoo inside! Its a very grand place. I wasn't paying too much attention to her name, but one of the Monarchs was quite fat, and she used to like to go and sit in the garden and have animals released into the grounds so she could sit and watch over them - hence now the zoo! We went for a walk in the back gardens, but did not enter the Palace itself. Apparently, the Palace has over 1000 rooms, if we did go inside, i think it would have easily swallowed our day. Further, the Habsburg's have another Palace on the other side of Vienna (only a few kilometers away) that they used as a winter residence! Its now used as a museum, and official government offices. We visited this place briefly on our bike tour, but the summer residence was more spectacular.

Following that, we rode to the Vienna markets for lunch! It was a mixing pot of fresh fruits and hot food from all parts of the world. Quite a good atmosphere! We ate some sandwiches and fruit to recharge before jumping on our bikes again destined for the historical center of Vienna.

St. Stephens is an old gothic Cathedral in the center of the historical part of town. We strolled around this area for some time - it was packed with tourists! - before sitting down for a coffee to relax, and enjoy the sunshine. We then rode back and returned our bikes, had a nap and got ready for a night out on the town.

We signed up for a Pub crawl - being Saturday night we thought it would be a great time, but each Pub crawl we sign up for tends to get worse as we go. I think we might stop doing these. They tend to take us to the touristy bars, or the bars targeting the younger crowds. Apparently, the legal drinking age in Austria and Germany is 16 so, the place they took us to was full of kids! Made me feel quite old, and kinda sick...
So, we ditched the pub crawl and went to a bar/nightclub called Flex, which is along the river. This place was alot better! We had a few drinks, mingled, and called it a night/morning... We had an early train to Budapest (no, not Turkey) to catch!!

Overall, we really enjoyed Vienna, and we regret not spending a third night there 😞

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Photos

Schonbrunn Palace
The back door

Schonbrunn Palace
The back yard

St. Stephens Cathedral
In the center of the historical part of town.

Old Nazi anti-aircraft tower
In some park in Vienna.

Comments

[john]

pubcrawl
which pub crawl did you do?