Vienna

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On the way through to Budapest we spent two nights in Vienna. On the way in to Vienna we went to visit the Schönbrunn Palace. This has many surrounding buildings and a huge park and is one of the most significant cultural monuments in Austria. Despite the oppressive heat we wandered around the grounds for around 2 hours and enjoyed a picnic lunch before we hiked up the hill to the observatory for a panoramic view of the palace and gardens.

We then headed out to the camping ground and tried to pitch our tent. We had pre-booked a campsite however, the owners of the camping ground don't designate spaces so when we arrived the site was already jam packed and we had to fight for a space to pitch.

We had one full day to explore the city and so began early by catching the metro into St Stephen's Cathedral. Here we were approached by one of the many people selling tickets to the large number of music and performances that go on every night in Vienna. After long deliberation and a very persistant seller we decided to blow the daily budget and shout ourselves tickets for a concert of classical music, Ballet and Opera.

The next stop on the whistle stop tour of Vienna was a wander around the huge Hofburg - Vienna's Imperial Palace and then onto the gardens for to get a quick respite from the heat. After a nice relaxing break we set off with no real plan, but managed to stumble across the location for the Vienna film festival (due to open that weekend). Set in front of an impressive looking church was a big screen, and plenty of bars and restaurants. We decided to stop for lunch and had one of the best meals on the trip so far, Teppanyaki.

From here we walked around the old city centre and managed to tick off all the other sites, House of Parliament and a number of churches before we headed to the concert. Not knowing what to expect we turned up to a school hall, an impressive one at that, still dressed in our shorts, tees and jandals, thinking we were going to be completely under dressed. However we should have known that it was packed with all the other tourists (tour groups in the expensive seats at the front, families in the middle and backpackers at the back) and watched two hours of music from Strauss, Beethoven and Mozart, all in all it was a good experience and one that we are glad we did.

After what was a very long day we headed back to our tent and managed to survive a huge Thunder and lightning storm.

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