Whistlestop Vienna

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!