The beautiful city of Vienna

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It was not a good start to the day, but in the end it turned out to be a wonderful (if not rather boring) New Years Eve.

When I woke in the morning, I was horribly sick. I was vomiting every 15-30 minutes. This was not what I wanted on my very first official day in Vienna. We had tickets to a New Years Eve performance at the Spanish Riding School, and then we had plans to see the city and go to a few places.

We were going to get a train to the city area and then get a hop on hop off bus to near the Riding School (we have a 6 day Vienna pass, which means we have unlimited access to all the hop on hop busses around Vienna. It was very handy yesterday when one of the stops is 5 minutes from our hotel). Well, that didn't go to plan at all. I needed to send Albert first to get me a plain breakfast from the supermarket next door to the hotel. It was yummy, but I couldn't keep much of it down. Next he went in search of a pharmacy to find some things for m

By this time (approximately 10am) I had started to feel slightly better. No more vomiting at least, anyway. It would be too late to get the train and bus in now so after taking some horrible tasting anti nausea medicine (they were drops of some kind and very bitter) we asked the hotel to call us a taxi. By the time it arrived it was 10:30. The performance was at 11.

But by the time the driver (who I felt much safer with than yesterday's one) got us there, we had about 10 minutes to spare. The New Years celebrations start at 2pm here, so there were already a few road blocks and police around, but although we can't understand a word of German, it seemed that taxi drivers could get into places the regular traffic couldn't.

The driver dropped us off and gave us directions to get into the place where the performance was. Now, I must emphasise that this place was a huge, old building, which appears to be the central part of the historical city. The road is cobble-stoned and there are horse and carriage rides along there, in which you need to give way to. There is also a few market stalls selling really nice things.

We went the way the driver instructed, and made it all the way into the building and into a line which appeared to be the right way to get in. We had about 7 minutes left, so yay! And then a lady (who ended up being the host of the show) told us that our entrance was all the way on the other side. They were fairly clear instructions, and some other people were heading that way too, so we followed them. We line up again. Nope, we have another entrance. The man spoke to us in German this time, so we really just had to guess where we were going.

By this time, a couple who sounded British began following us, and together we managed to find our right entrance into the theatre.

And what a theatre it was! There were three levels and we were on the very top, which meant we couldn't see unless we stood up. Considering my stomach was still churning this was hard for me at times. Photography of the horses wasn't allowed, so unfortunately we have no pictures, but in a few days we plan on doing to stable tour, so hopefully we can get some then.

The tricks these horses can do were impressive though, and we learnt (the host spoke in German, French and English) that the Spanish Riding School was 400 years old. Impressive, right!

The show was 90 minutes long, and despite my stomach not allowing me to appreciate the show in its entirety, what I did see of it, it was wonderful.

After that, we had to go all the way back around to the first entrance we tried to get to the souvenir shop. It was packed and cramped, we could barely move. Albert bought a few small things (one in which he broke from dropping it a while later) and I purchased a postcard book and a new laptop case. I have recently joined a website called Postcrossing, so the postcards will come in handy.

After leaving the shop, we crossed the road to the markets. There were quite a few nice things to look at there, and also a good place for buying gifts. What has surprised me is that Vienna is relatively cheap to buy things. Of course, if you go into the shops that sell watches or the Tiffany & Co. ones then you're going to pay. But your average shop, it's really not that expensive.

Now that we had found the city centre, we really wanted to have a look around. Choosing where to start was the hard part. It is filled with narrow and packed streets with so many interesting shops to look at. We simply had to pick a place to start and go from there.

Still feeling sick, food was not on my mind, so I kept forgetting Albert wanted something to eat. What we found funny was in the middle of all the fancy shops was a little takeaway fish and chip shop. We went in there, but it was packed, so we left pretty quickly.

As we wandered, we happened to notice this place called Time Travel down an alleyway. We went in, and it turns out that Time Travel is an hour long tour which takes you through important periods of Vienna's history. It would get us out of the cold, plus it was only 18 euro per person, which we thought was relatively cheap. We'd arrived about 15 minutes before the next tour was due to commence, so we booked.

The tour is in German, but there are headsets on the way in which you can get sort in your own language. It seemed to be a set dialogue for the tour guide to speak, for those who didn't require the headset seemed to laugh at the same times as us.

Although to some it may be a little cheesy, as you ride in a 'time machine', Albert and I quite enjoyed the experience. Your introduction is to 5 significant Austrians in history. There was a scientist, Sisi (the duchess) and a few others, one being a monk. Then you get on the time machine which shows you how Vienna began, going through to the time of Roman inhabitants, all the way to the 15th/16th century.

The walking aspects then involve learning about the Austrian Empire and the royal family. What we were interested to learn was that at one stage the Austrian Empire was huge. It stretched to places in South America and North America, and covered a large part of Europe. Over time, that dissipated, and by World War I, it became what it is now.

It went into the waltz period, and then we went into a bomb shelter to experience what it was like in that time period.

The final bit was a digitalised horse and carriage ride, which showed us the tourist spots in the city. Some may find it cheesy, but we very much enjoyed it, and we would recommend it. The place is called Time Travel.

After that, we managed to find a café to get some food. As I was still feeling slightly unwell, the fact that this café appeared to sell quarters of sandwiches suited me just fine. On any other day I would have felt hard done by, as I like my food, but it was the perfect size for me today. Albert had a cheese and ham roll. Mine was a tune and tomato one.

By now, the streets were starting to become packed for New Years. Food and beer stalls had popped up and there was music. We had looked into going to the fireworks at the Prata, but after hearing Vienna was under alert of attacks, and then later finding out that you needed to purchase tickets to get in, we decided to find a local pub to go to instead. We found a nearby one on Google, but after we wandered the streets near our hotel, everything was closed, we did not think the pub would be either.

Our dinner consisted of the left over pastries I had had for breakfast, as we learnt you needed to reserve a spot for our hotel restaurant, and even the McDonald's up the road was shut. We were going to see the celebrations in the bar of our hotel, but by 8, we were completely exhausted and fell asleep. I set an alarm for 10 minutes to midnight, we put the fireworks on the TV and then after we went to sleep again. What an exciting NYE it was, but oh well.

Happy New Year to everyone!

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Photos

Viennese Streer
One of the many beautiful streets in Vienna

Franz Joseph
Was ruler of Austria up until WWI. Was deemed a kind and conscientious man

Language Literal Translations
Literal translations

Lunch
Our lunch for today!

Austrian Ruler
I can't remember her name, but she ruled in the 17th century and had 16 children

Sisi
The duchess. Wife of Franz Joseph

Spanish Riding School
This building is so beautiful

Spanish Riding School
Just before the show started

Austria - No Kangaroos Tshirt
Probably only Australians and Austrians would find this funny