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Geo: 50.0924, 8.68195
The street the hotel is on was so noisy. I woke up several times because of people coming in late and not caring about making noise, and then the construction down the block started very early.
The tour was technically over after breakfast, so John and I went to the Prater this morning. The Prater is Vienna's old amusement park, and it reminds me a lot of the Fun Forest at the Seattle Center, only bigger. I wanted to go because I wanted to ride the Riesenrad, the old Ferris wheel used in Orson Welles's "The Third Man." Even though the park technically opens at 9:00, when we got there shortly afterwards there didn't appear to be anything running at all. But the Riesenrad was, indeed, running; it just runs very slowly. We were the first people on, but then the guy running the thing held us at the bottom for a few minutes till a French family of four turned up, and the guy put them in the same cabin with us. Not that I really minded, but really? There's no one in the park, there's no line for the wheel, why not give each group its own cabin?
Anyway, the view from the top was pretty good, and I had my Harry Lime moment.
We walked around the Prater a bit more, but still not many things were open and it began to feel a little creepy. So we took the U-Bahn back down to the main square in town (Stephansplatz) with the intention of going to the Haus der Musik. But then we decided that it was really too expensive, so we went in search of a British bookstore that Rick Steves lists in the Vienna book. We found it. The store was completely empty. Drag. So we decided to go to Demel, the fancy pastry shop that we missed going back to yesterday.
Demel was crowded, and there didn't appear to be any seating either, except for some outdoor tables that were already full. Sigh … So far, not the most productive of mornings. Since it was getting close to lunchtime, we decided to go to the Palmenhouse, which we passed yesterday during our tour with Gerhard. It used to be the palace's greenhouse, and it does still have some pretty vines and other greenery growing inside. I had pappardelle and John had salmon.
Fortified, we went back
to the fancy grocery store that Gerhard said has a good chocolate selection … and do they! All kinds of chocolate, with each tag sporting a flag to show what country the chocolate comes from. I managed to only buy a couple of bars. 😊
We then walked into St. Peter's church to have a quick look. It's small and crammed with religion, but there was a nice statue of St. Teresa and a painting of St. Therese, so I liked it.
We decided we just couldn't go on anymore, so we went back to the hotel to retrieve our bags and take the Vienna Airport Lines bus to (get this!) the airport. Vienna airport turns out to be pretty confusing, though signed well enough that we didn't get lost. We flew NIKI (related to Air Berlin) back to Frankfurt, and we are staying the night at the Hilton Garden Inn at the airport. It's pretty nice, although the printer in the business center didn't work when we went to print our boarding passes. When we told the front desk, the response was, “We know.” If you know, why aren't you putting an Out of Order sign on it? Otherwise, if I
ever found myself needing to lay over at Frankfurt Airport again, I would stay here.
We had dinner in the train station (sandwiches) and are now tired and a little cranky and I have a cramp in my thigh, so I think it's time for bed. At least the pillows look good!
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Aunt Marianne
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Sounds like you had a great trip--lots to see, good food, and LOTS of chocolate!!!!!!