We arrived in Vienna around 9 in the morning (by night train) and worked our way to our pension.  I was so organized with everything we needed, except somehow I forgot the directions to the pension.  Fortunately it wasn't hard to find!  Since we arrived in the south train station, it took a bit to get there, but we found it.  They even let us check in early - something most hotels don't do.  Maybe because it wasn't very busy yet and our room was ready.  So we went up to our room and rested a bit before heading out.

I was very excited to take Michele to the Natural History Museum, since I knew she would love it.  Unfortunately, it is closed on Tuesday (today) and we didn't realize this until last night.  So we came up with a new plan.  We would see Stephansdom and then head out to Schonbrunn Palace.  I also talked Michele into going to the zoo there instead of in Nurnberg (thanks to Martin_Austria's blog!).  They had more baby animals there.  Personally, I didn't care - animals look the same at any zoo.  That night we would come back and meet Martin_Austria for dinner!  I was really excited, even though this was set up at short notice. 

First stop was the internet cafe about half a block away to check in with emails, then off to see Stephansdom.  I couldn't go in it last time because I was there on a Sunday and it was closed for Mass.  Today it was open and we walked through it and saw the beautiful sandstone pulpit and stained glass windows.  Next stop was the climb up the tower.  It was a gloomy day, but we did get nice views of the city.  Back down we stopped for a quick lunch.  I got a cheese filled hot dog that was pretty good.  It still amazed me to see all the people out walking and shopping and who knows what else when it is so cold out.  It wasn't super cold but it was snowing and windy.  We just don't do that back home and I don't know why.  Most people just stay indoors.  But its nice to be out in the fresh air.

Next we went out to Schonbrunn Palace.  We decided to take a guided tour for a little more, but had to wait 30 mintues until the tour began.  So we went back outside where an Easter Market was taking place in the courtyard.  We walked through and looked at the booths and decided we would have to come back for some hot chocolate and the delicious smelling potatoes. 

There were only 3 of us on our tour but we had a lively guide that told us interesting stories about the Hapsburgs.  The audio self-guided tour probably would have been just as good, but we enjoyed our guided tour.  In one room a caretaker was vacuuming the paintings and it was hard for anyone to hear anything.  But our guide asked her to stop for us, so she did.  I guess that's one bonus of a guided tour.  The stories were interesting and I like learning about the history of things, I just forget all that information right away.

After our tour we wandered over to the zoo - the Tiergarten.  We decided to just see the animals in order as we wanted to see them.  First stop was the baby panda - and there was a line to see it.  We got in line and waited about 15 mintues only to find out the baby panda was sleeping out of sight.  Oh well.  Michele wanted to see the hippos so we stopped in that steamy building.  We looked at the orangutans and monkeys and penguins.  And then we saw the baby polar bears.  They were sooooo cute!  The little twins were playful - playing with a ball and eachother.  There were a bunch of people lined up at the glass so we couldn't get very close.  But they were super cute.

We watched the feeding of the penguins then walked through the rainforest - it was nice and warm in there.  We saw the baby giraffe, but it was a bit taller than previous photos I saw.  Michele wanted to see the owls and I wanted to see the parrots but there weren't many.  Again, there were tons of people out in the zoo, considering the weather.  We left near closing time because we wanted to catch the Easter Market before they closed.  We got hot chocolates from a chocolate fondu fountain - yummy!  Then we got some herbed baby red potatoes with a yogurt creme sauce - so delicious!  Yum!

We went back to our room for a short rest, then went to see the town by night, taking photos of some pretty buildings along the way.  We met Martin (Martin_Austria) by the Stephandsom and he took us on a tour through the city.  We saw the Graben memorial for victims of the plague, Hofburg Palace, Art Museum, Opera House and some other buildings.  We went in one church that had a beautiful string quartet concert playing.  I could have stayed there listening to the beautiful accoustics.  Martin took us over to his favorite restaurant, the Orange One (see his review).  It was a little local place that was mostly packed.  We got a table and Martin helped us pick out meals we thought we would like.  The food was very good.  We started with pancake soup - just what it sounds like (crepes).  It was delicious!  I got a dish with noodles but I can't remember what it was, but it was really really good.  Martin also suggested some delicious beers for us.  Later his friend joined us.  They both spoke excellent English and I felt bad that we couldn't really carry on a conversation in their native German.  Since it was a work night (for him) and we were a little tired, we called it a night a little early.  We had a wonderful time with him - he is super nice and took time out of his night to show us around.  Thanks Martin!

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We stayed in the Dr. Geissler Pension and had a wonderful experience. The pension is located just one metro stop from the downtown and Stephansdom cathedral at Schwedenplatz. From the metro stop, it was about one block of walking. We arrived in Vienna at the south train station and getting to the pension involved riding the tram and transfering on the metro, but once we were there, it was a convenient location. We also arrived at 9 in the morning, as we just came off a night train, but they allowed us to check in and freshen up before heading out. Maybe we couldn't do that if it was during a busier season. The pension is located in a plain white building and the rooms are scattered on the various floors. The main check in counter and breakfast area is on the 8th floor. Our room was on the 5th floor. The room was very clean and consisted of two single beds pushed together. We had a couch, sink and tv in our room. The bathroom and toilet were shared among the 8 rooms on our floor associated with the pension, but we didn't have any problems sharing. The only complaint I had was the noise of the traffic outside - but I guess that's what you get when you sleep with the window open. Breakfast was the typical rolls with meat, cheese or jams. An internet cafe was located about halfway between the pension and metro stop. The cost was about 60 Euros/night.

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We had a very early start to catch a 7.30ish train to Vienna from Graz and had a very interesting chat for part of the way; with an Austrian guy who turned out to be a local teacher. As we already mentioned our timing for this trip couldn't be much worse due to Mayday for which almost all of Europe is on holiday!! Finding a room in Vienna was a challenge let alone finding a cheap one and so we ended up booking an apartment for one night. To make matters worse the train to our next stop was leaving Vienna at 6am the next morning leaving us with an afternoon and evening to see all the sights that Vienna has to offer. We bought a 24hr transport pass as soon as we arrived and set off to locate our apartment. Luckily it wasn't too far out and better still it was huge and clean.

With no time to waste we dumped our bags down and headed straight out the door. Our first stop was an art gallery called the Oberes Belvedere which was a bit disappointing. We've got used to the museums in Salzburg and Graz which mostly offered cheap entrance fees, included free audio guides and provided free lockers for bags. We figured it is the whole big city/guaranteed tourist trade that allows this place to charge huge admission, extra for audio guides and a euro per item for bag storage!!! That would all be fine if the paintings were worth it but to be totally honest, with the exception of some beautiful Gustav Klimt pieces, they wern't. Not our best choice of museum considering our short time but most of the guides suggested it was the best one in Vienna. Horses for courses we suppose!!

Next we hopped back on the tram and had a ride through the city which was great as we got to admire the very beautiful architecture of the city as we made our way to the Sigmund Freud museum. Steph had studied Freud as part of her degree so we thought it would be interesting to visit his former home and practice. How wrong we were. The exhibits were so poorly labelled and catalogued that it was almost impossible to get anything out of the visit. The museum consisted of a series of books and other objects that used to belong to Freud and there was almost nothing about his life and the process by which he became the father of psychoanalysis. The museum was largely created by his daughter so maybe someone should analyse why she would allow it to be laid it out that way!!!! Not doing to well with Vienna so far!!

We hadn't wasted much time there so decided to take a stroll back the way we'd come and get a better feel for the city and it was then that we started to enjoy ourselves more. We passed the beautiful Rathaus (town hall), Burg Theatre and Parliament building and the warm spring weather had brought the people out to the parks. We relaxed a bit about trying to do too much and decided that we'd give the Reisenrad a go. It's basically the great grandfather of the London Eye and is a big wheel with train like carriages that slowly revolves allowing a panoramic view of the city. It was great and if nothing else allows us to say we've seen the whole city.

Back on the ground we decided that we'd take another tram ride and saw more a bit more of Vienna on our way back to the apartment where we cooked and flopped exhausted from our whistlestop tour. Perhaps it was the rush, perhaps the fact that we loved Salzburg and Graz so much but we didn't really 'feel' Vienna that much. You fall in love with every city!

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We swapped hostels today, not that there was anything wrong with the first one apart from some loud snoring from our room mates, but the original booking mentioned we might actually get moved into separate rooms and didn't want that to happen.  We were glad to move as the new place is very nice and the staff helpful. 

Again we went out walking, but this time we wanted to check out the palace gardens and the markets.  Apparently the gardens are bigger than Monaco, and granted they are large, but I'm guess that they'd have to be combined with some other gardens which are associated with other buildings to be that big.  The gardens are well looked after and well used by locals and tourists.  We saw lots of tourists paying the outrageous prices just to go on a horse and cart ride around come of the buildings.  40 Euros for 20 minutes - I don't think so.

The markets is a big food market strip which has all sorts of different foods from different regions of the world - one side was all fesh food market, fruit, vegies, fish and meat which the other was a whole heap of small restaurants.  We stopped in and grabbed some Japanese (not much local stuff on offer here).

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Another day and another train ride it seems.  It's actually quite nice to sit back and just watch the country side pass by.  It was a fairly slow train until we made it to the first town in Austria where the engine get's swapped over to something a bit more modern.  Once we arrived in Linz we swapped to an even better train which was very comfortable.  Got to Vienna mid afternoon and made it tothe hostel fairly easily. 

We went straight out into the town for a look around.  It's a very big city with lots of shopping.  The buildings on the main shopping strip kind reminded us of Hay St mall in Perth.  We spent quite a while just walking along the main street weaving our way through the crowds of people going in or coming out of the stores.  Eventually we made it to the Museum Quarter and decided to head in there and see what it was all about.  Well as the name says - museums, and quite a few of them as well.  It was a big complex of museums surrounding a central outdoor area where alot of people were sitting around, relaxing and chatting, so we did the same.  Hunger set in and we went to a Thai restaurant which was nearby.  No pics taken today, but plenty tomorrow.

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It was hard booking an affordable hotel in Vienna since I would need 2 rooms, as I was travelling with my parents. My usual places were fully booked. The Pension Franz had a wonderful website and the reveiws on Tripadvisor were quite positive so I booked the hotel. The location of the hotel was pretty convenient as it is quite close to the U2 U-Bahn, and as a result you can very quickly get into the heart of Old Vienna. The lobby and rooms oozed old world style and decor, like carpeted walls, rich wood, spiral staircase, large windows, etc. The rooms however were quite small and the beds very hard and low. The hotel is on the third floor (I think) and in order to get to the elevator you first have to go up some stairs (with luggage, my parents were not happy). The biggest problem was the breakfast. While the food was adequate, they served Nescafe as their coffee. This was not only unusual in my travel experience, but for me this seemed sacriligous as we were in VIENNA, the world-renowned capital of coffee. Needless to say, first thing I did on my way to the sights was stop in a cafe for real coffee.

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After the weekend in Barcelona with my friends who visited, I went to visit Steph in Vienna! I am aware that I went about two weeks ago and it´s been awhile since my last entry, so I have some catching up to do. But this entry is about Austria only, so I´ll update on life back in España later. It was my first Ryanair experience, which (for advice to others who might be flying Ryanair in the near future) was interesting, to say the least. To be fair, my flight was fine and I felt safe and it was really cheap. You make up for almost all the money saved, however, in bus fair to and from the airports (since Ryanair only flies into odd airports- for example, I had to take a bus from Barcelona to the Girona airport, and then from the Bratislava airport to Vienna). And the buses run at odd times to I spent about 10 hours travelling and waiting for planes and buses and what-not. It also didn´t help that I travelled alone, so I was bored the whole time. Boring info, I know, but just thought I´d give a heads-up to anyone who has yet to experience Ryanair. By the way, they also try to get you to buy stupid things at ridiculous prices while in flight. So there´s no escaping the madness...

Anyway, Vienna is beautiful. It wasn´t as cold as people had warned me and the architecture is incredible. There a ancient ruins and glamorous architectural details all in one block. It´s a metropolitan city, but not quite as big as Barcelona. The language is clearly not as pretty as Spanish, but I didn´t have much trouble getting around speaking English. And I learned a few german phrases, such as ¨guten morgen¨(good morning) and ¨zahlen bitte¨(check please). Although I kept wanting to speak Spanish to people... it didn´t really work out so well.

We went to the Naschmarkt, Vienna´s huge outdoor market (that includes a great flea market on Saturdays- Steph and I bought matching teacups for our apartment next year) and made breakfast at her apartment the next day. They even give out samples of delicious olives, felafel, patés, etc. as you walk by (I wish people in Barcelona did that at La Boquería...). And as many of you know, markets, cooking and eating are some of my favorite things (insert ¨the Sound of Music¨pun here)!

We also visited Shunbrun, the summer palace of the Hapsburgs, which has gorgeous views and gardens galore. Stephansdom, the famous cathedral, was really pretty, although it reminded me of almost every corner in Spain. Guess I´ve seen a fair share of cathedrals recently... We went to three different coffeehouses, which, let me tell you, deserve all the attention they get. A of all, delicious coffee. B of all, delicious torts. C of all, free water! (Okay, I know that´s not that exciting to most people, but I live in Barcelona where water is never free!) And they´re all in beautifully designed buildings, so I was a fan. One of the coffeehouses overlooked the main operahouse, which was nothing short of spectacular.

I think my favorite part of the weekend was when we stumbled upon a little festival in front of the Rathaus, one of the government buildings. There were stands that sold cheap glasses of Austrian wine and beer (and I got to keep the glass), and was complete with musical performances, lederhosen, and drunken Austrians. What more could I have asked for? I loved getting a taste of what Austria was really like, since I really knew nothing about it before.

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The Pension Quisisana is an affordable pension in the shopping heart of Vienna. It is very close to the Mariahilferstrasse, which is Vienna's main shopping atreet, and very close to the city center. The service was good and the breakfast buffet was decent. The room however was a bit noisy and the 2 separate beds was actually a queen bed with 2 sets of sheets and pillows. So you better like the person you are travelling with, because you 2 will become really close! The room also lacked ventilation. However, the bathroom was large and clean. This place wouldn't be my first choice when visiting Vienna, but it is passable.

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Just a warning. I found the Pension Kaffeemuehle on the internet when looking for budget accomodations for a recent trip to Vienna. In order to make a reservation you have to input your credit card information. (Many places ask for that). After a few days I received an email that the hotel was unable to accommodate my request, so I booked another pension. A few months later my credit card was charged for one night's accommodations for 2 rooms from the Kaffeemuehle. They produced receipts that I never saw for a day I was never there. I disputed the charges with my credit card company but lost the case since I didn't save the denial email from months before. So be careful when you request a room from them.

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I've been to Vienna a few times, and my favorite place to stay is the Pension Kraml. It is located near the Mariahilferstrasse, a major shopping street in the center of town, and near 2 metro stations. The street itself is quiet. The pension has large comfortable rooms and a nice spread for breakfast. The service is also very nice. You cannot beat the Kraml for the price.

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Place visited:

• Naschmarkt: curious marquet in Vienna. In it, you can buy food for all world
  
• Karlsplatz and Karlskirche: very maravellous church. In barroc style.
  
• Opera
• Stephansdom and interior: Big and beautyful cathedral.
  
• Haas Haus: Modernist bulding in Stephanplatz. Veru contrasted with de cathedral.
  
• Graben and Pestsäule: Avenue/square very important. The Column is impresionant.
  
• Peterkirche:
• Hofburg: Enormous palce nad gardens. Obligated visit.
  
• Rathaus: In gothic style are very beauty. In front (in winter) there are a fair.
  
• Parlament

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Vienna Sightseeing is offering city tours of 1 to 4 hours throughout the city. The duration is between one and four hours and the busses leaves every hour. All tours start at even hours from the stats Oper (state opera house) but you can hop on and off dureing the tour. Tickets are sold rght outside the Opera house stop. Each seat is equipped with headphones with a multiple language selection to guide you through the tour. I went on the one hour tour, which takes you around the inner ring ways past the natural history musseum, Hofburg, the city hall, university, Freuds home and café, the city park and ofcourse Stephans Platz and Cathedral. The tour is great for seeing a greater part of Vienna if you onley have a short time on your hands or to get an overview of what you wish to have a closer look at. The longer tours takes you further outside the center of Vienna like Schönnbrun. The service is good and it's a nice organized tour that offers a lot in just a little time.

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The Vienna Volksprater is an amusement park of 250 diffrent attractions from ferris wheels to ghost trains. The Volksprater was in 1987 used as a set for the James Bond movie "The Living Daylights" staring Thimothy Dalton and Maryam D'abo. The scene where they share a coach in the Wiener Risenrad ferris wheel is one of my faveorite movie scenes and I felt that the ride it self looked so spectacular that this was my MUST DO experience dureing my one day vienna stay. The ferris wheel takes you 64,75 meters above the ground, and whats so special about this ferris wheel is that you ride in big coaches instead of the small coaches that is otherweise charactaristic to ferris wheels. This means you get the view from a lot more angels. Also if you have your big vallet with you you can book a coach for an evening dinner which must be an amazeing experience. The Risenrad is deffinately not the worlds highest ferriswheel but it 1897 and has more history and charm to it then any other ferris wheel so when in Vienna dont ever cheat yourself of the ride. Walking around the Volksprater park is fun and relaxing - it's like one big circus in the middle of the big city - however it is also (at least at daytime) a precious sanctuary from the noise, pollution and chaotic trafic that characterises a city like Vienna. The best way to get to the Volksprater Park is to take the underground line U1 to Praterstein station and walk 5-10 min. to the entrance. Once you've exited the station just follow the ferris wheel you can't aviod seeing it.

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