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Published: November 30th 2008
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After our near-death experience on the train returning from Bratislava, we finally arrived safely back in Vienna at about 2pm, still absolutely gasping for a drink (with our lack of Slovak currency, we'd had no liquids since about 8am and had spent hours walking around in temperatures of almost 30 degrees). We raced to a little cafe in the Sudbahnhof and asked for some water, to be told that they only had fizzy...we don't like fizzy, but we really couldn't care at this point, we just wanted liquid! However, the man behind the counter in his attempts to be helpful kept telling us over and over that it was fizzy, and asking if we were sure we wanted fizzy. On and on and on he went, while John and I started drooping behind the counter lol-finally we managed to convince him we
definitely just wanted any drink he was willing to offer us, before grabbing the bottle, running out and collapsing on the floor with huge gulps of yukky fizzy stuff. Aaaaaaaaaaah.
We took the metro back to the hotel to get changed (we were feeling rather sticky and unattractive at this point) before then heading back onto the metro
to Karlsplatz. It was just a very quick stop really-off the metro, round to see the church, a few pictures, a five minute rest and then back on the metro. We soon wished we hadn't done it that way, because that's not the way we like to spend our time, and we'd rather just be walking around stumbling on sights and soaking up the city atmosphere. We were trying to see as much of Vienna as we could in the short time we had left, but thinking about it, that really wasn't how we wanted to see the city. So, once we got off the metro at our next stop (Rathaus) we decided that we were going to make more of an effort to just wander the city streets that evening, and for the rest of the holiday.
When we got off at Rathaus, we walked to the Town Hall, where there was a big film festival going on-the place was absolutely packed, and there were lots of food and drink stalls, mini-cafes/bars and just people milling around relaxing...which was rather nice 😊 We took a bit of time to look around before moving on...in completely the wrong direction.
We were supposed to be heading back towards the Stephansdom and headed in the direction that we thought it should be-and where we could see what looked like a big cathedral in the distance. So we started walking towards it, only to realise at about ten metres away that what we were looking at was the Voltivkirche and not the incredibly dramatic Stephansdom. You'd think the fact that it was on a quiet street with just about no other tourists to be seen would have given us a clue, but clearly the lack of water earlier in the day had affected our brain more than we had realised (ahem...). At least it meant we got to see a nice church lol (and see, had we gotten the metro, that would never have happened!). At this point, I think the hectic-ness of the past week was also starting to affect me though, and seeing the nice church was not exactly a particularly good thing for me, when my feet were hurting and the infamous (in our eyes anyway) Austrian street signs were being about as helpful as usual. I may have ended up having one of my more bratty moments, which
generally involve me throwing anything in my hands on the floor and stamping my feet (yes, people-or, at least this one person-do actually do that in real life!). John finally got us back on the right track, and I started to calm down a bit-but then the wind started picking up and I started feeling small drops of rain. And that's when the temper tantrums really picked up 😉 I was stomping down the street like nobody's business and poor John was completely bemused by the whole thing.
We also had a dilemma at this point. We had planned on spending our last Viennese evening at Prater, but with the thunderstorm from the previous night fresh in our minds, we really didn't want to be stuck in the middle of a park miles from the hotel when it started chucking it down again (plus our clothes from the night before were still drying out, and if the same thing happened again, we would be stuck with soaking wet clothes on a travelling day).
But it wasn't really raining heavily at this point, and the clouds at that time didn't suggest that it was going to get too bad. Hmmmmm.
Eventually, with the mood I was clearly already in, John made the decision that we should just head back to Mariahilfer Strasse, get tea and go to the cinema. It was a shame, because it would have been nice to get to Prater, but it really just wasn't worth the risk. So we headed to the Hofwirt complex, where we got the metro (that was allowed, as we'd only have been walking down streets we'd already walked down...plus it was raining!) down to the cinema. Before the film started, we pigged out on McDonalds (turns out teenagers in Austria hang out outside McDonalds just the same as in England, by the way!) and then went to see Kung Fu Panda. I normally am quite prejudiced against Dreamworks animation, but it was the only decent film on that we hadn't already seen-and it was actually much better than I expected. So it was worth a trip in the end 😊 As was completely predictable, when the film had ended, the weather had brightened up and there wasn't a rain cloud to be seen-however, it was getting rather late, so we decided to just call it a night and head back to
the hotel while I was still in a relatively calm mood!
Thanks to our sojourn to Bratislava, we didn't get to see as much of Vienna as we had really planned...however, I don't regret going to Bratislava at all, because it was really a great city. Vienna was completely different to how we imagined-so big and busy-but very interesting and beautiful in parts. The one thing we noticed most about the city was that almost every person was either a tourist, a trendie (some very strange male hairstyles going on) or a drunk...but really, despite how it sounds, the city is absolutely fabulous, and we'd be more than happy to return some day and spend a few more days there so we can really appreciate the city more.
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