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Published: August 18th 2008
Well we arrived in a cold and rainy Vienna after an uneventful train journey from Ljubljana, and luckily the rain stopped for long enough for us to erect the tent. We headed straight into the city centre to explore (in the rain) and weren’t disappointed - mainly because one of the first things we found was a cinema showing original English version films! We knew it was time to start acting like travellers rather than holiday makers so we got a good nights sleep so that we could have a full day of sightseeing (and maybe squeeze in a film) the following day.
Day 1: The day dawned bright and sunny so we took ourselves off to the most typically Viennese tourist attraction we could find - the Tutankhamen Exhibition (it was half price) - the artefacts were amazing but the “tomb chamber” was a bit of an anti-climax given that there are about 7 Tutankhamen Exhibitions touring the world at any one time and we got the rubbish one with very little belonging to Tutankhamen himself. We then headed to MOMUK, Vienna’s Museum of Modern Art which was interesting but not a patch on Tate Modern. We made it
to the cinema that night and saw Hancock which was very good. Imho.
The highlight of the day was our journey home though - we arrived at the tube station to find a couple screaming at each other at the end of the platform. In typically British style we hid around the corner and tried to ignore it - the Austrians however seemed to feel that it was a floor show put on especially for their own entertainment (it was quite funny hearing adults stamping their feet in public - and in flip-flops) and were openly staring and laughing. The argument lasted the whole 10 minutes that we were waiting for the train and only ended when the bloke stayed on the platform while his sparring partner boarded the train.
Further delights awaited us on the train as we had a brilliant view of the carriage behind us where the campest man on the planet was entertaining his fellow passengers by singing and dancing to whatever was playing on his iPod. He seemed especially interested in one poor bloke whose face we couldn’t see unfortunately but most of the passengers in his carriage seemed to be enjoying the
show. Even when he started pole dancing and rubbing himself against people (I think it must have been a Madonna song at that point) people still thought it was funny (can you imagine what would have happened on the London Underground!). As we got off the train and passed by his carriage he was just starting a very loud rendition of “Man, I feel like a woman!” How fabulous!
The third and final highlight of the night was the bus journey home (it was a long journey from the Cinema to our campsite - 2 trains and a bus). There were a group of French students staying at the campsite and the bus was very busy so there were about 12 of them all stood together in a group at the front of the bus. Nothing unusual there then... until they all suddenly started singing a soft and melodic version of “Frères Jacques”. They sang it 3 times then stopped and carried on chatting as if nothing had happened. Now, we have never been to France so have no idea if this is normal for French people to burst into song on public transport but if it is then
we might make more of an effort to go there! Christmas would be the best time though as I know all the words to “Mon beau sapin” (Oh Xmas Tree). All in all a very interesting journey home...
Day 2: After a night of torrential rain we woke up to another bright and sunny day. Our first stop was the Freud Museum based in his old Viennese apartment which was very interesting - his couch was not there but his custom made office chair was, it was very exciting! We then had a picnic lunch in the People’s Garden before heading to Prater, an old fashioned Fairground about 3 times the size of Blackpool - there were 3 funhouses, 2 Wild Mouse rollercoasters and the piece de resistance - carousels with real live ponies! None of this plastic pony nonsense for the Austrians - 100% real live ponies and carts in their carousels, it was very bizarre - a bit like stepping into Mary Poppins world but without the dancing penguins. We had chicken sandwiches for lunch and played cards on a pilfered picnic table until the rain started once again...
Day 3: Today it rained and rained
Flowers For Jen's Mum
Mum, this is what that tall blue flower in Zvonko's garden blooms into! Fab!and rained and rained, so we decided to play it safe and do the Danube River Cruise. Unfortunately the Danube River is the most boring river in the whole world, ever (the Vienna section anyway). It was a 2 hour cruise and the highlights were a power plant, a stadium and a really big lock. In fact the lock was such a highlight that an hour of the 2 hour cruise was spent just getting though it. By the end of it we were ready to slit our wrists - but don’t worry - you too can see how amazing the lock was as we have put up all the photos we took (it was the only way to alleviate the boredom). We decided to head to the cinema again to cheer ourselves up (and because it’s much more fun than walking around in the rain or being confined to the tent) so we saw Get Smart which we found funny but not as funny as the Austrian crowd who seemed to be literally wetting their pants throughout most of it which definitely added to the fun.
On the whole we found Vienna to be a very pleasant city
- we didn’t do the music thing as the concerts were all very expensive and we didn’t take many pictures because there are far too many beautiful buildings to choose from but we did enjoy the things we did. By the end of the 3 days though we were more than ready to leave...
(Quick note on the photos - the photos on this blog are from Vienna and Innsbruck - it takes ages to upload them so we decided this would be quicker). The first set (without numbers) are Vienna and those with numbers are from Innsbruck. Enjoy!)
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