City Hopping: Vienna

5th - 6th July 2016

On the move

After having a bit of fail hiring a car we had opted to interrail around Europe. The first part involved travelling every other day from city to city at quite a fast pace starting with Vienna. Our first train was quite comfortable with plug sockets and a table so we spent the day watching TV on our various devices.

We found a cheap twin room in a hostel so we took full advantage of having a bit of our own space. We got some food from the supermarket and did a bit more planning exploring the city and our onward journey.

A church

After spending a ridiculous amount of time walking around temples and shrines in Asia I don't know why I started exploring all the churches of European cities but I did. I really like the Gothic architecture.

Very Gothic

Awesome spot for football

Next up was the Rathausplatz which looked like it was all geared up for Euro 2016. It was the day of the big Wales match and as I was at this point a fully fledged Wales supporter we decided we would return here later to watch the game.

Parliament

History Museum

The Parliament building and the History Museum were both very grand buildings that were typically European. I took about 1000 pictures of buildings because I really like the look of them but I've tried hard to narrow it down to a few. Here's a picture of me trying to open a very large door...

Pretending to be a borrower

Grand staircase

If I thought the outside looked impressive, it was nothing compared to the inside. It was jaw dropping. So very stunning and grand and it contained so many awesome pieces of art. The morning turned into a bit of a photo shoot.

Wowsers

Egyptian Art

The was a large collection of ancient Egyptian artifacts which are always cool. Next was a large section on ancient Greece and some more recent stuff.

baby mummy

Dave's lost his head

The Greek section

Young, adult and elderly heads

Huge painting

This painting was huge! It covered the ceiling of a room that was large enough to maybe call it the ball room. I've not seen a painting as big as this before.

Epic porcelain

The detail on these porcelain statues was incredible. There were so many awesome things in this room including a lot of mechanical stuff that moved. Like cuckoo clocks only a million times fancier.

Fuzzy duck, ducky fuzz

Paintings

I tried to be all appreciative of the rooms full of paintings. Don't get me wrong they are impressive and if you do take the time to look at some they can tell a story but it was almost as if I was forcing myself to appreciate them.

Don't do it!

All art'd out we left and found a man attempting to kill himself.

What?

Oh, its ok, its just a statue. Why the hell is a statue of man like this on a building. I suppose its got some significance but I did make my heart skip a beat when i first saw it but then I realised anyone wearing a top hat clearly deserves to die.

Tourist Pic!

Next up was Hofburg Palace. We didn't fancy paying to go having already paid for the museum and figured it would be more of the same. Behind it though, was a tribute to little known local musician called Mozart.

Mozart Memorial

The Library

I can't really explain why but I loved this library. This is what all libraries should look like. It felt like it should be on a movie set and period drama. I just wanted to go and climb one of the ladders and push myself along down the rows!

A library for the Gods!

I need a monocle!

The big man himself

In the library there was a bit of a tribute to Franz Josef, the old Emperor of Austria, after which the glacier in New Zealand was named. That town still holds a special place in my heart so I felt a pang of nostalgia when I saw the caption.

Step back in time

The rich part

Kids gonna be famous

The self imposed walking tour continued into the central shopping area where we saw some guys filming. We considered about sneaking in behind them to get our faces on TV but thought better off it.

Even bigger church

Many candles

Someone call an ambulance

We went into another church which was even bigger and more spectacular than the last one. When we left we stumbled across this horrendous scene in a shop window. At least I think it was a shop, I couldn't see any way of getting in so maybe it was just a display. Note the empty bottle of vodka on the floor next to the driver. Such awful scenes to witness. Shame on him!

Yay fountain!

Belvedere Palace

Our last big tourist spot of the day was Belvedere Palace and no, its not a museum dedicated to Belvedere vodka although that would have been epic. I actually don't know what it was a museum for as we just wandered around the very nice gardens.

Animal heads

I'm not entirely sure what the mounted animal heads represented nor why there was a random snowman in the middle of July! Maybe it was a tourist thing as most people couldn't resist giving the snowman a bit of a hug including myself.

That a pan on his head?

This front or back?

Random

This made me laugh. As I was looking around a souvenir shop to start my European Destination Magnet Collection I noticed this. They must get so many confused tourists looking out for kangaroos and koalas!

Even more random

As we walked back through the city we heard music coming from a large temporary bar. Well we thought it was just a bar but once we climbed the stairs it turned out to be a full on wave pool with people surfing! I was not expecting to see this here at all. We watched a few people wipeout before heading on.

Seriously?!

What the hell is this?! Did he leave the shop before they had finished building it? Or is a bit of lego that's fallen apart. It seems to have wheels, maybe its a pram?!

Sunset over Vienna

Back in the Rathousplatz we bought some food and a couple of beers and waited for the big game to start. It was nice to sit down after so long walking around. We claimed our spots to watch the game from and the place filled up around us. We weren't the only non-welsh that were supporting Wales. It would have been awesome had they got through.

Just to be clear

The crowd gathers

Goodnight Vienna

Dave and I couldn't decided which we preferred, Munich or Vienna. It was a tough call but both had been really cool cities. The debate was irrelevant anyway having only just started our trip through Europe. We had 9 more destinations to visit with the next stop being Bratislava in Slovenia.