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Published: November 12th 2008
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We woke up in quite a distressed state, really not wanting to leave Salzburg at all. I just had to keep telling myself over and over again that I really would regret it if we didn't go to Vienna, because it's one of those cities that I've always really wanted to go to, but for some reason just always assumed I'd never make it to. So, we made our way down to breakfast and after stuffing ourselves ready for the train journey, we set off to the station at about 8:45am. We were getting used to the random Austrian street signs at this point, so thankfully, getting to the station proved a lot easier than getting to the hotel was when we first arrived! The train was incredibly busy, and I found myself very thankful that we'd booked seats...although my smug mood was lessened slightly by two really annoying men sitting opposite us. They were reading piles of books about leadership psychology, and speaking to eachother in French, German and English while also randomly mentioning 'Belgium!' quite a lot. In three hours of sitting opposite them, I cannot describe just how annoyed I became by their irritating, obnoxious little faces (I
really can't describe what was so bad about them, but they were just very, very irritating!).
Typically, the train journey took a little longer than it should have, and we finally arrived in Vienna at 12:40pm. Our hotel was right opposite the station, so we ran down there (pleased to see the sunny weather had followed us from Salzburg) to see if we could check in. They only had rooms available with two single beds, which wasn't what we'd booked, but as we were in need of a bit of a rest and a shower from the train journey, we decided to just go for it rather than wait a couple of hours for a double to come available. As it turned out, the room was so hot in the two days we were there we needed two beds rather than one just to stop our body heat killing us anyway...lucky break!
After a shower, it was time to go out into the city. Our hotel was right at the bottom of Mariahilfer Strasse, which is a huuuuuuuuuuge shopping street (one of the longest in the country, I think!) so it took us a bit of time to
walk down what with the Saturday crowds, but we were in no rush as we had a bit of a nosey around the shops and tried to take everything in. John remarked that it was absolutely nothing like what he imagined Vienna would be like-it was so modern, and trendy, while I think we were expecting something a bit more elegant and compact (more along the lines of Salzburg). That's not to say we didn't like it immediately though-after the more relaxed atmosphere of Salzburg, it was nice to be in the midst of a more busy, energised city. When we reached the end of Mariahilfer, we found ourselves in the midst of the Hofburg Complex, which was definitely more along the lines of what I imagined Vienna to be like-very big, grand and old! There was a nice park there with lots of people lazing around sunbathing, and it would have been nice to join them...but we had a lot of city to see, and not much time to see it in, so we had to move on. Before leaving the complex, there was just time for one of John's favourite moments of the whole trip, when I accidentally
found myself standing on an airway, and failed to realised in time to stop my skirt blowing up and giving half of the city a good view of me in my knickers. *sigh* Naturally, I panicked, and in my state, I just couldn't grasp that moving off the airway would stop my skirt blowing around...John eventually had to just drag me off! Stupid, stupid, stupid. Anyway, after that "fun" incident, we found ourselves on the pedestrianised Kartnerstrasse, which is another big shopping street-again, it was very busy but in a very good way. Just lots of people having a good time in a beautiful city :o) We just walked around a bit, again dipping into some of the shops and just taking everything in. It's actually hard to find the words to describe just how happy I was and how much fun I was having at this point-although the shops, and even the street itself, weren't particularly unique or any different to what I've seen in loads of cities, it just felt good to know we were together in this great city, relaxing and having an awesome time :o)
Anyway, at the top of the street, we turned off
to see Stephansdom, the incredibly impressive (but, as usual, when it comes to our holidays, covered in scaffolding) cathedral. There was an insane amount of people around there, so we just stayed long enough to take a few pictures before wandering the nearby streets. We stumbled across Peterskirche, where there was a big wedding going on with lots of TV camera and photographers around, which was very random (after Salzburg, we were starting to get sick of seeing all these big events going on and not recognising any of the participants!) and just took in the Viennese atmosphere, before realising that we were very hungry and returning to Kartnerstrasse to a chinese restaurant that we had passed. We sat out on the balcony overlooking the street and had all our favourites while watching this really cocky kid playing the accordian on the street below. He was so entertaining, we had to make sure we passed him on the way down to give him some money! For pudding, we got absolutely huge ice creams from nearby the Stephansdom-three scoops of chocolate, banana and caramel for only 2 Euros!!! :o) It seemed like I was in heaven, until I realised that giant
ice creams and 30 degree weather don't really mix. I soon ended up with chocolate stains right down my t-shirt...after the skirt incident earlier on, this really wasn't turning into one of my more successful days! We had to go all the way back to the hotel so I could get changed (passing by the Staatsopera on the way), but at least on the way, we noticed an English cinema on Mariahilferstrasse, which was showing Hancock an hour later. So we figured that rather than head all the way back to the centre, we might as well relax and take in a film :o) The film itself was actually rather crap lol, but there was a scary moment when halfway through, there was a short powercut-the film and all the lights went out, and for someone like me who is afraid of the dark, it wasn't exactly nice! Luckily they came back on after a couple of minutes and saved me from a full-blown panic attack...and when we got out, we found out what had probably caused it. There was a serious, crazy, thunderstorm going on, and it didn't look like it would be shifting at any point in the
near future...so all we could do was make a run for it. It took ten minutes to get to the hotel and we were absolutely drenched through-but at least I can now say that I ran through a thunderstorm on the streets of Vienna (I think that sounds pretty cool!). For the rest of the night, we watched the storm from the hotel window and settled in to watch the boxing from Hamburg on TV...anymore time spent outside and I'd probably end up electrocuted, if the rest of the day was anything to go by!
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Marta.
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Your blog is so funny (esp the airway passage!LOL)!!!I am glad you posted a new one!YAY!When are you leaving for the next trip!?LOL- You now make me want to visit Vienna!!!!