Advertisement
Published: August 17th 2023
Edit Blog Post
Our first full day of sight seeing in Vienna. We had decided to ride our bikes into the city (14kms) and do a self guided walking tour. Then come home before returning to the city for dinner and a Mozart concert at the Vienna State Opera House. A big day.
At breakfast, we found tickets online for the concert and purchased them. We set off on our bikes for the city just before 10am. It took the best part of an hour to get into town. We locked the bikes up at the start of our walking tour which was out front of the Vienna town hall. It makes the Melbourne Town Hall look like the local Scout Hall. The idea was we would finish the tour and come back to the bikes by 3pm to give us time to get back to the apartment and get ready for the concert.
Vienna is an amazing place. We've all commented on the WOW factor it oozes and probably replaces Paris, for us, as the most amazing place we've been. Every place we went just blew us away. Elegance, style and grandeur just oozed everywhere.
At one as we walked
Jeff need to use the toilet and Tom and I said we'd wait 30 meters away at the Plague Column which is a massive statue. So we waited, and waited, and waited and no Jeff. We wondered what was keeping him. After about 30 minutes we went looking for him in the toilets and he wasn't there. Where was Jeff? I tried calling his phone but Jeff's SIM card ran out yesterday before he could recharge it. Tom and I waited some more assuming he'd come back to the last place we were all together but alas no. At this point we figured we'd go back to the bikes because we all had to ride back to the house. We visited St Michael's church and the state opera house on our way back to the bikes which is where we found Jeff. He said he went back to the Plague Column and couldn't see us, waited 30 minutes and then went back to the bikes via St Stephens Church. Not sure how he missed us but at least we were back together again.
Back at the house we worked out the public transport system (bus plus train plus tram)
to get to the opera house. We grabbed some dinner and then went to the concert. What a special experience that was. 30 musicians plus conductor and a male and female vocalist. It was a grand performance of almost 2 hours.
We had to head back home now. Tom was navigating the public transport system for us and put us on a wrong tram. We headed back to get the right one. On a different tram we were now headed for the Underground train. Which is were our problem started. Just before we got off, some plain clothes ticket inspectors got on and asked for our tickets. Which we didn't have because you can't buy tickets on trams or buses, just at the train stations, which is what we had done on the way in and were about to do at the train station. This excuse didn't cut it with the inspectors who said we should have bought tickets online. The single concession they gave us was 2 fines instead of three, at 105 euros each! At least the fine came with a one way ticket. Well, nothing to do except pay the fine and get home. All in all
an eventful day in an amazing city and then a great dinner and concert. Tomorrow we'll be more organised about getting fares online before travelling.
Distance travelled today: 28kms
Distance travelled so far: 2,532kms
Advertisement
Tot: 0.08s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 6; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0573s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb