Day 12: Vienna and Salzburg

Wednesday, August 18 2010

Our morning routine had to be changed. Our alarms rang 6:45, and we had planned on leaving with the 9.12 bus, but we didn't make it. We went with the 9.22 bus. Packing the tent wasn't complicated, it was just annoying. The inner tent was difficult to fold neatly. Also that had been directly on the ground, and the ground was wet, you get the picture. And we had to get rid of all the spiders, crickets and ants off of it too. 

Our train to Salzburg left 10.20 from Wien Westbahnhof. We there early enough and I went to get some tea and since I was still feeling like I was going to get sick, I added a bag of Finrexin, a cold medicine to my tea. Brain thought that the combination is disgusting.

The train was really packed this time too, and luckily we were there early enough to get good seats. The trainride wasn't very eventful. 

Salzburg Hauptbahnhof was under construction and it didn't look like it was going to be done anytime soon. It took a while for us to find an info place where we could get a map of the city.

Originally we were supposed to stay at a camping place, but we got an email from there while in Berlin, that they're fully booked and we can't go there. I had also gotten sick in Vienna, so we decided we'd stay in a hostel. We started walking to the wrong direction first, luckily not that badly, but still too much. I was tired and sick and getting cranky. I apparently was very cranky while we were walking to the hostel. I noticed it myself, but I didn't think others would, and Brain did. I thought I managed to hide it so well!

Our hostel was YoHo International Youth Hostel in Salzburg. We hadn't reserved anything and just went there. The 6-bed mixed dorm cost 22€/night/person. Including us there was an Asian girl and boy and two guys who we never saw awake. They weren't in the room when we got there, they must've been in town somewhere cause they got there around 2-3 am. And we left before they woke up the next day. Our dorm room had a bathroom and a toilet, and they were separate too!

YoHo hostel pictures (all clickable)

 We left our luggage in the room lockers, and left for town. We walked onwards on Paracelsusstrasse and turned onto Franz-Josef Strasse. There was a little cafe there, we got coffee with toasts. I got an Italian toast (mozzarella, tomatoes, olive oil and lettuce of some sort) and a caffe latte. Brain got a Greek toast and a caramel macchiato.  MasterCard wasn't accepted. Dun dun dun

Since it was already afternoon, we wanted to climb up to the Hohensalzburg fortress. We walked around Schloss Mirabell. I wasn't very impressed with it, after all, I've seen Sanssouci and Schloss Schönbrunn. This was in the very middle of the city, and it wasn't as grande as one would assume a Schloss to be. (Although there were sculptures of unicorns, which I thought were cool! -Brain)

  Schloss Mirabell (clickable)

We crossed the river and walked through the old town towards the Hohensalzburg fortress, but didn't spend too much time in the old town. We did buy a couple postcards, one for our friend's fiance who was fighting in Afghanistan at the time. The address was strange, it had no country on it. We assumed it was going to England first, so we just got stamps to England..

Hohensalzburg Fortress

Views of the fortress and around it

A funicular up to the Hohensalzburg fortress would've cost over 10 euros, so we decided to walk up the hill. It didn't take too long, and it wasn't very difficult, although it was a very steep hill. At one point we noticed we had taken the shorter way, which meant a whole lot of stairs. Once we were up high, there was a gate and entrance through that cost 7,40€ and that included the entrance to the courtyard, the museum in the castle, and some audio guide. We didn't want that, we just wanted to get to the courtyard, so we didn't pay the 7,40€. We turned around and started walking on the Mönchberg, which is the mountain/ridge the fortress is located on. 

To get back to the old town we had to climb down a whole lot of stairs, and some were quite scary too! We saw St.Peter's Abbey. It was very different from Vienna's St. Peter's. The Dom was near too and we had a look inside. It was very pretty. The center isle was probably as long as the one in Tuomiokirkko in Tampere, but this was wider and higher.

Brain's side-note: I don't think I'd ever seen a real-live nun before the visit to Salzburg, or after it, for that matter. But in Salzburg we saw several: one was riding a bike, and there was one on the bus as well. 

Mozart's birth house on Getreidegasse

We walked to Getreidegasse, which is one of the main streets in the old town. We saw the yellow Mozart's birth house. We ate at an Italian restaurant. Our waitress had the craziest hair, I tell you! Small pizza was 5-6€ and bit 8-9€. We thought we ordered the small pizzas, but I guess we weren't clear enough. The check had some funny numbers on it. Pizzas and drinks together were supposed to be less than 20€, but the total cost was 23€ or so. After dinner we bought Mozarts kugeln, they weren't that good. It had been raining a little the whole day so we walked back to our hostel and hung around there.

More pictures of Salzburg taken on the Mönchberg. You can click on all the pictures to see them in full size.

Stairs we had to climb down to get to the Old Town from the Mönchberg.

The Salzach river was a weird green color. Like all the rivers in Austria...

-Pinky

DAY 11: Vienna

Tuesday, August 17th 2010

We woke up fairly early and took our time getting ready. It was very cold in the tent during the night, and the morning was quite cold as well. Not very nice. We got breakfast from the nearby supermarket and didn't realize to read the fine print, so ended up having to pay about 7€ each. Furthermore, our credit cards were not accepted once again. We didn't bother changing our purchases for something cheaper though, just paid with cash and went back to the camping site to eat.

After breakfast and all that, we went to the amusement park that houses Vienna's Giant Ferris Wheel. We didn't go on the wheel itself though, because it was expensive. Instead, we rode the smaller Ferris wheel and then an insane ride - Prater Turm. It was 117 meters high and very scary. I was afraid that my glasses would fall off the entire time, because it was so windy up there (up until last week, Prater Turm was the scariest and coolest attraction that I'd been on). That amusement park was nice, and there was no entrance fee to the park itself, so we just strolled around for free :)

The view of the Giant Ferris Wheel (and the rest of the amusement park) from the smaller Ferris Wheel

Prater Turm. Yikes.

On our way out, we passed a restaurant that seemed affordable, but since we were low on cash, we walked out of the amusement park and started looking for an ATM. Found a bank, took out money and went all the way back to the amusement park. And of course then we noticed an ATM on the amusement park grounds. Oh well, too bad. At the restaurant we both ordered Wiener Schnitzel and when the waiter asked if we wanted salad, answered affirmatively. The menu sounded like the salad was included. The portions were quite giant, but very good. Especially the salad. I'm proud of us both for finishing all that meat though. The waiter brought the check, and it was more than we'd expected, but I guess he just added the service fee. Or then the salads weren't included in the price, but again we weren't bothered to find out.

Wiener Schnitzel and salad. If we hadn't said "yes" to salad, it would've just been two pieces of meat!

We left the amusement park and had to buy new Vienna cards because our old ones had expired. Then we took the U-Bahn to the St Marx cemetery. An S-Bahn would've taken us much closer, but we would've had to wait for half an hour for one of those. We didn't spend much time at the cemetery because it was starting to rain. We did manage to find Mozart's grave though. It wasn't too fancy, just a small statue there.

Pinky felt like she was coming down with a cold and wanted a cocktail or a hot beverage. We couldn't find a cocktail bar, but settled for Starbucks. I got an Ice caramel latte macchiato (I think I'd developed a small addiction to those, lol).

The final sight we wanted to see in Vienna was Schloss Schönbrunn. I must say my expectations weren't all that high. I thought it would be just another palace. The palace itself looked like it was made out of cardboard - not real. We walked around to the other side of it and I think my jaw actually dropped. The garden was absolutely gorgeous, and there was a hill directly behind the palace with some sort of a viewing station (the Gloriette, according to Wikipedia). And an awesome-looking fountain. Naturally, we had to climb up the hill, which wasn't bad at all because there were no stairs to climb. The view from up there was unforgettable. The whole city, or at least a very large part of it, was visible and it was all very picturesque. From what I'd seen that was my favorite place in Vienna. Here are some pictures, all of which are clickable, btw.

The view of the garden behind Schloss Schönbrunn

The Gloriette and the Neptune fountain

View of the city from the top of the hill

The garden was quite nice too

Schloss Schönbrunn main entrance

The zoo and the labyrinth were already closed, because it was past 19.00, so we didn't get to see them. I suppose that is just something I'll have to see on my next trip to Vienna then!

It got late and quite dark, so we headed back to the camping site. We thought it would be a good idea to make our own rum 'n' coke's to help Pinky beat her cold. So we did just that - there was nothing else to do at the camping site in the evening anyways :P

-Brain

DAY 10: Vienna

Monday, August 16th 2010

We woke up very early (at 6:35, to be exact) and got ready to leave. We wanted to catch the 9:10 train to Vienna and it was already at the station when we got there. It's a good thing we were fairly early, because we were able to get seats. Quite a lot of people had to stand. The 2.5 hour train ride went by quickly without anything out of the ordinary.

We got off at the Wien Meidling station and got ourselves maps of the city. Crappiest maps so far. Very annoying to use - metro map on one side and city map on the other side. My map tore almost completely by the end of our stay. We found more or less where the Wien Camping Süd is located on the map, and couldn't quite tell if it was too far to walk. But first things first - we went to McDonald's and got ourselves some light and healthy lunch (cheesecake and ice caramel latte macchiato for me :P) After that we were off. We found the right street and quickly realized that the Camping Site was way too far to walk to, so we took a bus, which stopped right across the street from it.

My lunch :)

We took care of the payment and other formalities, and set up our tent:

Ta-daaa! All set.

We bought 24-h Vienna cards, which would allow us to travel unlimited for 24 hours, and headed for the Old Town. Stephansdom was pretty cool, although a large part of it was covered up due to construction work. We went inside, and the Cathedral wasn't all that special - same old Gothic style Cathedral :P

Street view

We then started looking for a place to eat and finally settled on a Cafe-Restaurant Frauenhuber. Turns out it's the oldest cafe in Vienna, and Mozart's last public appearance as a pianist took place there in 1791. It wasn't even all that expensive, and the food was good. And the waiter was very polite and gentlemanly. After dinner we walked to the Hofburg Imperial Palace, and walked around that whole area. It took us quite a while, and there was a lot to see. We saw the Rathaus, the Parliament Building, the Museum of Natural History, Museum of Art History... There were a lot of beautiful buildings. The University of Vienna was awesome, I felt a bit jealous. The negative side was that most of the Old Town smelled like horse poo, because there were horse carriages going around constantly. 

Hofburg Palace and The statue of Prince Eugene of Savoy (same dude as in front of the Buda Castle!)

Museum of Art History

After we'd finished exploring the Hofburg Palace grounds, we walked to St Peter's Church. It looked quite plain on the outside, so I didn't expect much. I was stunned when we walked in though. Stephansdom was boring in comparison. And people were actually there to pray - the whole place was silent. 

 St Peter's Church from the outside and from the inside

By the time we left, it was getting late, so we decided to start looking for a grocery store, to get breakfast. Turns out most stores close around 7 pm, ant we didn't find a single store that would be open 24/7. There was a large supermarket right by our camping site though, so we decided to go there first thing in the morning. At 20:30 we got to the bus stop and took a bus to the camping site. It was already quite dark. The reception at the camping site was already closed when we got there. There wasn't really anything we could do, especially since we only had a crappy flashlight with us and it was dark, so we just went to sleep. It was 21:30. I tried remembering the last time I would've gone to sleep that early and couldn't :D

-Brain

Vienna, Austria

Vienna is the capital and the largest city of Austria with approximately 1.6 million people. It is located 40km away from the Slovakian border. The city of Vienna is divided by the river Danube.

• Trains operated by ÖBB, Austrian federal railways.
• InterRail pass is valid on the S-Bahns (some exceptions in Salzburg and Graz)
• Generally in hotels and restaurants a service charge is included, but it is still polite, and recommended to leave a little extra to the servers, and if you're staying in a hotel, something to the maid. This service charge, or tip culture, varies in every European country, so it might get confusing, but they say Austria is like Germany with the tips. Cash is accepted everywhere, cards might not be. 

According to Wikitravel there are some railway station constructions going on until 2015 and currently one big station, Südbahnhof, is closed completely for construction and the others are open but they are under construction now.

There are nighttrains and high speed trains going  to neighboring countries and back frequently. Some are direct trains and some are not so direct trains from cities such as Budapest, Zürich and Prague.

Some examples of travel times:

• Vienna-Budapest 2h 55min
• Prague-Vienna 4h 5min

InterRail passes are valid on some private railway lines as well, but only those that are ROeEE or GySEV. Some ÖBB buses are free with the InterRail passes (Graz-Klagenfurt and Klagenfurt-Venezia Mestre)

More about InterRail discounts can be found here. 

Places to see:

• Stephansdom, a gothic Cathedral, inside the Ringstraße (Ring Road) by Stephansplatz. On Sundays and public holidays there is a service at 9:30am in July-August. 10:30am other times. Catholic.

 Stephansdom, St. Stephen's cathedral

• Ringstraße (Ring Road), was once surrounded by city walls, but they were torn down in the 19th century. The Ring Road has many things to see so it is definitely a place to check out. The Rathaus (city hall), Natural History Museum and the Austrian Parliament, State Opera House for instance can be found on the Ring Road.
• The downtown area of Vienna is on the UNESCO World Heritage site, so it's worth a visit.
• St. Peter's Church. I know, this is like the third or fourth St. Peter's we are going to see, but I just have a healthy obsession with St. Peter's Churches. Wherever I go, if there is a St. Peter's Church, I go there and if possible I climb up the tower. I've seen the Hamburg St. Peter's and climbed up to the tower, the St. Peter's in Riga, and went to the tower. Then I saw the St. Peter and St. Paul's Chuch in Prague. 
• Museums quartier I hear is recommended.
• Hofburg Palace is now the residence of the Austrian President. It once served as the residence of Austria-Hungary rulers. To get the the main entry we go to Michaelerplatz, which is good to see anyway, and then from there to the Hofburg Palace.

 Hofburg Palace

Places to spend the night:

Meininger   in Vienna. This says that we could get a 10% discount from the Vienna Meininger if we reserve beds online.

I will write about camp sites later to this post.