Vienna

We missed the train we were planning to get to Vienna so had to wait a couple of hours until the next one -- the boards at the train station were too confusing! Anyway we upgraded our seats to first class and went in style.

After getting off the train we had to make our way to the metro station which involved going up some escalators, which is when some big guy standing a few metres in front with a huge bag on his back lost his balance, waved his arms about a bit and them came tumbling down the escalator like a human bowling ball causing a domino effect on everyone in his path!

I unfortunately was one of these human pins and lost my balance also, due to having my big backpack which sent me crashing into the side of the escalator where I fought to stay on my feet while also hanging onto my shopping bag of food and drink but I eventually pulled it back and stood up properly. The image of that guy in my head losing his balance and tumbling down still makes me laugh now, it was hilarious!

Our hostel was pretty easy to find and was located near the main train station in Vienna, so after dumping off our stuff we got a bite to eat and went for a walk around the city. Vienna had a really layed back feel to it and seemed easy going, which I liked and the buildings dotted around were stunning.

The following day we decided our first point of call would be to find somewhere good to eat, so after a recommendation at about 11 we sat down at a restaurant called centimeters. It was called centimetres as you could order food by the centimetre such as bread and sausages etc but i went for a potato soup for starters and a tuna salad for main. I regret ordering both as the portions were absolutely huge and were twice the size of what I expected but I plouged through anyway. The potato soup was the highlight as it was served in a bread bowl which was probably bigger than the size of my face and really filling so I had to resist eating all the bread otherwise I would have no chance of eating anything else.

After stuffing ourselves we waddled along to the Museum quarter of the city and went to check out a couple of exhibitions. The first was an art exhibition from a few famous Austrian painters which was really good and the second was a punk exhibition.

The outside area within the museum quarter was nice to relax in as there was a large open space which had rubber blocks which you could lay down on and sun yourself for a bit. There were also open air bars around so you could get a drink and watch the world go by.

It was then off to the Palace which was a few metro stops away from the centre, though when we got there we couldn't actually go in the building as it had just closed but the gardens were still open so it wasn't a wasted journey. In fact the gardens were unbelieveable, just the size of them were stunning enough but they looked beautiful as well. We had a short hike to the top of the hill at the far end of the gardens where the view was amazing and you could see across the city.

Our evening meal took forever to come, I think we were in this restaurant for about 2 hours so by the time we finished it was around 11pm. Anyway we decided to take the metro to the park where there was a big ferris wheel at a fair, which when we arrived didnt look that great really -- I dont know why it was emphasized on my map. That wasn't the worst part though as when we went back to the metro to go back they had stopped runnning!!! This was pretty frustrating as we were totally the otherside of the city, everything was closed here and all public transport had stopped so we had to resort to getting a taxi back which signed the end of our night.