To Vienna

Frank off to work and Belinda and the boys off to the zoo with Aussie friends, we left Prague thankful we didn’t get a parking ticket as occurred last weekend.  Steady trip to Vienna today, there was a little hold up with traffic around Poysdorf where we go through a little village with a crazy set of traffic lights, holds up hundreds of semi-trailers traveling the same route.  A bypass is being built and looks like it will be finished in about 6 months, will take 30 minutes off the trip.  We weren’t in any hurry to do the 3.5 hour trip and got away late and took our time and arrived in Vienna at about 2.30pm.  Nice hotel, a 2 minute walk to the Underground and a 10 minute ride on the train to the city centre.  Got in to the centre at 4 and decided it was about time we had lunch.  Visited the Information centre after that and got the idea to do a walk around the city highlights. 

Sounded like a good idea at the time and we did see lots of the major attractions.  Went up the south tower of St Stephens cathedral, past all the grand buildings from times past.  Through the gardens to get back to the centre by about 8pm. 

Vienna city is a very clean city, with all the buildings well maintained looking great.  The shopping choice are truly amazing, there are kilometres of pedestrian mall, lots with high quality product, it’s just unfortunately we did have time to spend more time shopping!!!

After our walk we went to the closest pub to the train station for a beer, waited 10 minutes and weren’t served, went to the next one, we were served straight away and it took 15 minutes for them to bring us a drink.  Dying of thirst by this stage we guzzled it down (in part due to the number of smokers who set up camp near to us), go on the train and got home about 8.45pm, just in time to see the sun setting from the window of the hotel.  Went down the have a drink at the bar and make plans for tomorrow.  I’ll just bore you with some photos of Vienna.

This is the country we traveled through all the way to Vienna.  We thought there would be snow capped mountains, but all we found was very fertile farm land covered in crops.

Huge crowds all through Vienna, couldn't believe how many people were in all the malls.

One of Pams favourites - the Swarovski shop.

And another

St Stephens Cathedral

With jet stream

Huge and elaborate interior

The candle lighter

Detail of the roof tiles

View from above

The largest church bell in Central Europe.

Long way down

Lets go higher!!

Where we've just been

One of the many castles in Vienna - this is the guard/gate house.

This is the dome in the gate house

Entry to the palace by the horse and carriage

Another palace - most of them now are museums and concert halls.

The Soviet memorial celebrating the liberation of Vienna by the Soviets in 1945.

Father time about to lose it.

Park views

Time to walk home.

To our sunset.