Jamiewrites: Vienna Day 1 and 2

Something I forgot to mention in the post for the day it happened - one morning (Thursday, I think) I was in the shower when I heard a loud bang before the lights went out. Relatively unperturbed, I decided I'd finish my shower in the dark (as best I could) and get out to see what had happened. Meanwhile, Rochelle had called the front desk and managed to convey to them we'd lost power, but hadn't understood what they were going to do about it. They must have done something, though, 'cause it came back on while I was attempting to find my way out of the bathroom.

Anyway, to the actual day in question.

Day 1

We were a bit sad to leave Munich; we'd really enjoyed our time here and - while not deliberately; it just turned out that way - we were leaving town on the first day of Oktoberfest, and you could already feel the kind of energy that sort of festival brings to a city. People were dressed up in traditional clothes, and there was a seemingly neverending parade of horse-drawn brewery carts (with bells) in the streets.

But leave we had to, and catch the train to Vienna. We caught the metro to the train station and - after deciphering the platform information, grabbed some food and ate before jumping onto the train and heading east towards Austria. We didn't spend much time admiring the scenery, since this was the exact train we'd taken a couple of days earlier to Salzburg - where, this time, we'd have to change trains to get the rest of the way to Vienna.

We hit a bit of a snag (figuratively, not literally - though we were in Austria; heyo!) when at one of the stops along the way we seemed to be taking a while to get going. A few minutes turned into ten and from ten into twenty; I am, of course (as you've probably noticed), more than a little paranoid about such things when there's a timetable involved - and there was here, 'cause our train from Salzburg to Vienna was leaving only nine minutes after we arrived. And my maths told me a twenty minute delay would mean missing our train by eleven minutes. A certain amount of angry panic set in.

I went to find a conductor to ask; he didn't speak especially good English (still, much better than my German) but he told me it would be fine. I wasn't overly convinced, but since there was literally bugger-all I could do about it, I went back to my seat, still more than a little frustrated. But not too long after that we got underway, and once we did it was clear we wouldn't make our scheduled departure time; we then started looking at contingencies. At worst we'd probably have to wait an hour for another train to Vienna - that's pretty popular journey, so there are plenty each day. However, once we got to Salzburg, it became clear why the conductor said it would be fine: the connecting train was waiting for us. So, we quickly hauled our stuff out of the train and onto the platform and bolted to the one where our train was waiting - since we'd been in Salzburg earlier in the week we'd actually scoped out the route we'd need to take, so it was very easy. And then we were on our way to Vienna.

Got to Vienna and caught the metro to the stop nearest our apartment - for those of you familiar with the city, we were staying in Leopoldstadt - and were then faced with the usual dilemma of which of seemingly unnecessary number of exits to take in order to walk the rest of the way. Somewhat unsurprisingly we took the wrong one and ended up adding an extra ten minutes to our journey. But we got there eventually and took a look at where we'd be staying for the next four nights. It was small but easily big enough for the two of us. I thought there'd be a washing machine but we couldn't see one; however, there was a notice saying they'd do laundry for us for 8€ a bag so we thought we'd make use of that since it was cheap (check out the prices for laundry in a London hotel if you're game) and saved us time, effort and potentially having to learn how to work an unfamiliar European washing machine (I had to do that in Paris in 2016).

Then we were off to explore the city a bit, starting with the markets. We'd planned to take food back to the apartment at least one of the nights we were here, so we decided we'd give that a go tonight. After wandering the markets for a while to check things out, we took home our hoard of meat, bread, cheese, stuffed capsicums, chilli hummus, baklava and - somehow - 10€ worth of candied nuts and caramels courtesy of a fast-talking market guy who probably realised we were tourists who wouldn't argue about it. We then hit up the Aldi (called Hofer in Austria) for some wine and bought one of the fancier bottles of red wine (Flat Lake) we found there - for the princely sum of 5.49€. Then it was home for dinner and a night in: drinking wine and watching (since we didn't want anything requiring too much concentration) the surprisingly okay (yet still utterly pointless) 'Angry Birds' movie and an episode of 'Friends' thanks to Netflix.

Day 2

First on today's agenda was a walking tour, which we set off for after having leftovers for breakfast and stopping for a coffee. Our host was a quite elderly Viennese lady who was an absolute store of knowledge and had survived WWII in the city. The tour itself started quite well, but she was a bit hard to hear when we were in busy/noisy areas (of which there were many, obviously) and because we started late we ended up missing one of the times where you could see the Fancy Horses from the Spanish Riding School cross from one side of the road to another (presumably one that people went on that tour for, since there were a stack of people waiting to see what to us seemed a little bit meh; sure, they were pretty horses, but still), and that set us back quite a while. So much so that we had to leave before it was finished, 'cause we were planning to set out for a half-day trip to see the Abbey at Melk, and couldn't afford to kick around any longer.

First we had to go back to the apartment 'cause a dumbass who I won't name (okay, it was me) left their transport pass there. Once we'd gotten that we got back on the road - first to the metro station and from there to the train station where we bought returns tickets for the journey.

Not much that I can say about Melk that's better than the pictures show, so just look at those. Unfortunately, most of the museum and cathedral inside are no-photo zones, so I can't show you those - trust me, it was pretty damn impressive, particularly the cathedral. There are some pictures here, though.

One odd thing: they were having a 12-hour concert in the town below the abbey for some reason; we heard bits and pieces of it on our way there and back and on our way out of town to the train station they were singing (in English) Peter Gabriel's 'The Washing of the Water' - a song which I know, but only because I have the album ('Us') that it's from. Seemed kind of an odd thing to hear in a random town way out in the country in Austria (it's an hour or so from Vienna), but sometimes that's just how it is.

After getting back to town we found a place near Stephensplatz that served traditional Viennese food (the second one we tried; the first one was full) - veal schnitzel, and crumbed chicken that probably should have been considered schnitzel but was described as fried chicken on the menu; also potato salad and strudel, which someone didn't like because it has a) apple and b) raisins in it - to have dinner before heading back to the apartment.