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Despite it raining again on our way to Prague station, our run in with a passive aggressive train conductor and the super hot room we shared with a middle aged German couple, our first experience of a sleeper train on this trip was not as bad as first feared. We both got about 5-6h sleep in our awkward little bunks during our 7h journey. We were however still pretty dozy, cranky (Dan was raging about the hostel directions till later in the day he realised they had been from Westbahnhof station not Haufbahnhof!) and in dire need of a hot shower when we arrived at our privately run hostel 'MoJo Rooms'.
Thankfully, our new host Sandra offered us is option once we had checked in, which we both jumped at, she also asked if we had any plans, gave us a suggested itinary and offered us breakfast, though we decided to head out for that. We jumped on a tram down to Westbahnhof, which is our nearest big interchange for the underground, and found a bakery chain called Anker for some coffee and breakfast. Then we jumped on the underground with our 48 hour travel cards and headed off to
Schonbrunn Palace. The Palace was the summer residence for the previous monarchy and it was massive! We debated taking one of the guided tours of the interior but at ~€20 for something that neither of us were that interested about learning about, we decided to just wander the vast grounds and take in the architecture and gardens instead. We found a number of fountains (one very grand one in particular), a little lake, a menagerie, a maze and a second very impressive building worthy of the title of 'palace' all by itself. It was roasting hot, about 32°, so we had to take frequent stops to cream up, rehydrate and attempt (and fail) to stop getting massive sweaty bag size patches on our backs.
After the Palace we jumped back on the underground and headed into central Vienna, which is contained within a ring road which used to be the layout of the medieval walls. Our first stop was to a large food market filled with cafés, restaurants and deli style stalls. We wandered around for a bit before deciding on 'Vollpension' a well priced Austrian cafe which was just outside of the market and rated #2 (within our
price range) in Vienna on TripAdvisor. Needing caffeine, but baking to death, I went for the 'Iced Coffee a la Vollpension' which included ice cream, whipped cream and sprinkles followed up by a pint of trusty ice cold soda and lime to drink. For food I had 'The Spicy Grandpa' a cheese and ham platter with pickles, a soft boiled egg and a curry mayo sauce on the side. I had failed to not the 'soft' in 'soft boiled egg' part of the menu, our table was quite flimsy so, thinking it was hard boiled, decided to break the shell on my knee....cue me firing egg yolk straight down my shin, much to the surprise of the young Austrian lady walking right past me at the time who audibly gasped. Dan thought it was absolutely hilarious and to be honest I had to agree, it needed laughing off.
Eggy leg cleaned up, we headed over to a square surrounded by the Vienna opera house, art gallery and tourism office to meet up with a 'pay what you want' walking tour. We were the first to arrive but after a while our group built to about 20 and after an
uncomfortably long period standing in the blazing sun, we were off. The tour lasted about 2h 30m and our Viennese guide talked us through the key sites and buildings in south-east Vienna including the Museum Quarter, Hero's Square, St Peters Cathedral and Mozart's House. Despite lacking a much needed water stop, the tour was good so we each stuck €10 in the pot and headed back along the tour route in reverse to snap some shots of the buildings and monuments we had just learnt about without being rushed. We then headed to Anni a Vienna based bakery chain which our tour guide Ingrid had recommend to us as being the best trade off of quality and authenticity over price. We each got some coffee, I got some traditional apple strudel and Dan ordered (with just a bit of a language barrier) a raspberry Danish.
It had been very hot all day, we were sticky from the sun cream, sweaty from the heat and worn out from walking all day long after a dodgy night sleep on the night train, so at about 6pm we got back home to MoJo for a much needed shower and a rest. We
decided to buy some food and use the cooking facilities rather than head out for dinner but weirdly all of the nearby food stores seemed to close at 8pm and we were too late, so instead we popped to subway for a foot long and amazingly were able to pick up a few beers to take home there as well. We caught up with one of our roommates Steph, who is from AUS and travelling around Europe own her own for 5 months, we played cards and had a beer before retiring to bed for the night in our clean and comfortable, but annoyingly hot, 5 bed mixed dorm.
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