Vienna

Our last night in Stramberk turned out to be a nightmare as we both only got about 2 hours of sleep as there was a massive drunken party taking place in the hotel room next to us. Would have joined but we knew we had a huge day coming up trying to find our feet in a new city that was foriegn to both of us. After about a 4 hour train trip, we arrived in Vienna tired, in 40 degrees heat, in the dodgiest part of town and had no idea how to work the tube/tram system (which is really really convenient and extensive everywhere we've been). We had to get help to buy our tickets and asked a couple of times where our stop was... we did notice however, that no one else seemed to have a ticket, nor were they ever checked.

Vienna is filled with buildings on the grandest scale...even the suburbs are made up of 15th century buildings that have been converted into appartment blocks/offices. We found the hostel where we had booked for our 2 nights and apparently they had only booked for 1 of us! Eventually after about 4 hours in 40 degrees heat, we found a place that we think were university residences converted and suited us perfectly and where we could both stay together...they were just about 30-45 mins walk to town so quite far out. We had a little nap and then toured around the city on foot...its definately one of the most beautiful cities we've been to so far because it is so much cleaner than the rest, and filled with really colourful gardens and parks every couple of blocks. We decided to treat ourselves to a restaurant and both ordered a schnitzel that filled our plates...was fantastic. We then walked down to a square and watched an open air concert (Wagner's symphony in E major or something) until dark...about 10 o'clock.

The next day we explored every inch of the city...Jen's highlight of the day was definately the market which contained hundreds of stalls of fresh produce...she was in her element pointing out all these types of fruits she had told me about once before and I hadn't a clue what they were...dragon fruit, jack fruit, etc. Everything that could be stuffed was, and everything else was either pickled or preserved. We could buy anything we wanted, including tongue, trotters and king prawns. Luckily the budget did not allow any of it!

We became experts with working the trams and hopping on and off before we had to show a ticket. But I have to admit that we counted every station and waited with bated breath until the doors closed at each stop. We did have to dodge the cops on one or 2 occasions when they are waiting at the other end, but luckily we had forewarning. Bed time could not come soon enough and it was great to give our legs a rest after all the walking of the day. Our tickets to Budapest were already in our bag, so we got an early night, in anticipation of catching the train at 7 the following morning.