After arriving off the overnight train (...a very much not so comfortable over night train) we decide to go straight to the hostel, and see if we could leave our bags there until we could check in later in the day. That's exactly what we did and with a weight lifted (literally) off our shoulders we headed into downtown Vienna to explore, and to locate a much needed Viennese coffee and Strudel! ( thank you Aida Cafe!)
Rather than doing a walking tour in this city we tried something different. The map provided by the hostel we were staying at was actually FANTASTIC! The best free map we've found so far in our travels! Where in the previous cities Claire and I would be comparing and jumping between two or three maps - one with the city, one with the metro lines, one with recommended sights and food places - this one had it all! It also had suggested self guided walking routes, and a wee bit of history/description about some of the main sights areound town so this was a real treat! (It really is the small things in life isn't it 😉) I know that claire will agree that we resly felt that we were seeing and exploring Vienna in our own way and at our own page and this feeling of freedom combined with this extra description was just FAB! Dodging down some secret narrow streets, stumbling across some beautiful hidden squares with no tourists (apart from ourselves) anywhere to be seen!
This exploring took us up to lunch time(ish) when out of nowhere the rain started!! Only the second time in this trip so it was quite welcome (for the first wee while anyway) and we used this as an excuse to dart into one of the many galleries and museums in the city. This first one was The Albertine where they have the most glorious Impressionist exhibition on at the moment!! From Monet to Picasso and several lucky surprises in between Claire and I were in our element as we wondered in awe around this magnificent building spending almost two hours walking through this exhibition (and a fair amount of this time looking at the Claude Monet, Waterlilies masterpiece!) We then discovered another room of Jim Dine self portraits and had to zip round this quickly too as our poor tummys were calling for some edible respite!
Jumping back to our favourite map we discovered a quaint local favourite that had some of "the BEST goulash in Austria!" And by far the best goulash we've tasted on our travels so far! As has become habit, we chose two different dishes, so we could both try both! Duh! This time I had pork chops. Also a roaring success! (And of course some local beer to wash it down!)
When the rain eased up a little we decided to take another wonder towards the Museum Quarter, three massive (and I really mean it, they were HUGE) buildings. Two of the buildings were identical, bar a few of the statues on top, and these sat facing each other over a gardened square, and a third building that was double if not quadruple the size of the other two ran along another side of this square. Together they housed about 5 different museums/galleries of various specialities ( none of which we went into unfortunately as we count afford to pay the entrance into all of them and had to be selective!! next time 😉). We wandered through these gardens in the direction of the metro when we finally headed to our hostel!
As I'm sure we've mentioned before, one of the best things about travelling is visiting the array of multinational friends we've made through uni and college. Tonight however we met a very good friend of my dads, Wolfgang, who kindly took Claire and I out of town a bit to a local Austrian reasturant in his own neighbourhood on the outskirts of Vienna. We hadn't realised how close the green belt (and the national park that this includes) was to the main city centre. In only 15/20 minutes on the metro we were out in green fields and surrounded by trees! Enjoying again the space and freshness that the countryside provides. The restaurant its self was a bit quirky...obviously a Chinese restaurant wasn't really what climbers and hikers arriving from the local hills were expending while travelling in Austria so didn't last too long, and the local Austrian reasturant owners that took over just decide to leave the Chinese facade the way it was...haha. As it was dark when we arrived and we were pretty hungry I don't have a photo of this but you'll have to trust me that it was ace! And best of all th traditional Austrian food we are that night was WELL WORTH IT!! Thanks again Wolfgang!!
Back to the hostel again , looking forward to sleep in an actual bed tonight, we ended up chatting to the folks in our dorm for a while. Two medical students from Australia and New Zealand, and a couple form England. This is another fabulous thing about traveling around so much, the people you meet really make it a great and unique experience!
F xx
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