Interrail 2016: VIENNA

With less than 24 hours in Austria, we knew that we'd have to make every minute count in the country's capital city. After quickly leaving our bags in our hostel room, we walked into the Museum Quartier, which is home to some very, very grand buildings. The Quartier leads to the shopping centre of Vienna, where we visited Tchibo to buy some essentials (British Tchibos, I miss you) and wandered around. 

Vienna is well-known for its cafes, so we found a place that had stunning looking cakes and settled down in some plush seats. Despite the 27 degree Celsius temperatures, I went for a hot chocolate and Austria's famous chocolate torte, which has apricot jam added to it. I can't say that I was the biggest fan of the apricot addition but the cake as a whole was delicious.

It seems to be a recurring thing that we find some great amusement in the bathrooms of our Interrailing countries. On our trip to the cafe's bathrooms, we were alarmed to find that the toilet doors had clear glass as their doors- not exactly ideal. On locking the door, a circuit is completed and the glass suddenly frosts up, with the addition of a stop sign. 

We couldn't understand it either.

After dragging out our time in the cafe (got to get your money's worth), we went on the hunt for dinner. Whilst supermarket shopping is often considered to most mundane but easy of tasks, in Vienna it turned out that pretty much the entirety of the city except for restaurants closes at 6pm.

6pm.

Our mission to find some cold food for dinner turned into a mass search around the city and, in the end, a tourist information lady directed us towards the most high-end of supermarkets with twenty minutes until closing time; it was basically the Austrian version of Whole Foods. 

As we hadn't seen many of the tourist attractions in the afternoon we had been there, we decided to walk from our hostel to the Hundertwasserhaus. On the map, it didn't look to far. Forty minutes, maybe fifty if we take it slow?

It took us 80 minutes.

Vienna was completely dark, with very few people out, and we were hiking alongside the main road with only map skills to get us through. It was hardly the pleasant, taking-in-the-vista walk we had anticipated for.

However, we made it to the building. As it was so dark, the Hundertwasserhaus wasn't even that visible, but from what we could see it was impressive. A visit during the day is on the cards if I visit again.

The spectacular Hundertwasserhaus... Or what we could see of it

Once we had taken in the little that we could see of the building, we had the entire return journey to deal with. Blisters were forming, calf muscles were aching, and it was getting quieter and quieter. We set out on getting back to the train station we had passed earlier on, though feared that it would be shut like the rest of Vienna.

Thankfully, it was open.

Whilst we hadn't seen a single person other than security guards for the Hilton Hotel we had passed earlier on (never has a hotel looked so appealing), the lowest underground level of the station was heaving. It seemed that the majority of Vienna was partying in the underground levels of train stations across the city. Every station had hoards of people and the trains had no spare seats. 

Vienna has, undoubtedly, the most confusing of cultures out of any place I have been, but it truly does do good cake. Our 18-hour stay in Vienna had come to a close and it is now time for our next stop: Budapest!