Alarm went off. It was 4am on a Tuesday morning. I had to catch the early train at 4.40 to Vienna. I didn't slept well that night, 3 hours was way to little. But the prospect of seeing my girlfriend later that day kept me fresh and excited. Mum drove me to the nearest railway station in Austria and I caught my train literally in the last minute. The ride was smooth and some four hours later I was in Vienna. Once in the city, I had to take the S-Bahn (city train) to Vienna International airport, which took me about half an hour.
I arrived at the airport around 9.20 and my girlfriend was supposed to arrive at around the same time. I headed straight to the arrival hall and had to wait. And wait. And wait...
There were so many people waiting for their dear ones and every time someone opened that gate and came out with a load of baggage, everyone hoped it will be their friend, their lover, their relative. I had to wait half an hour before I saw a cute Taiwanese girl in a purple sweatshirt pushing a fully loaded black suitcase on wheels. She exited at the second gate and seemed a bit confused, because she didn't spot me immediately. But I saw her and I tried to find my way between the people to get to her. Few moments later she spotted me and we smiled and approached each other. We hugged.
After the extensive hug and plenty questions about the flight and everything, we the city train back to Wien Meidling station (the currently main railway station of Vienna south), where I planned to buy a subway ticket, that lasts for 24h and you can ride as many trains as you want.
The ticket costs currently (in 2010) 5.7 euro per person and it's really worth it, if you plan to tour the historic center and go back to your hotel. Our hotel was pretty far away from the center, but by train, it was only 3 subway stations away. After getting the tickets, we headed to our hotel [Birg-Cyrus], which is located in the Favoriten district, south from the city center.
I have to say, after seeing various subways in Asia (Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei, Kaohsiung and Seoul), I'm pretty disappointed with what I saw in Vienna. I wasn't actually bothered by the fact that some trains were old and dirty (eating is allowed in the trains), what really makes it hard for tourists is the lack of good maps and signboards in English. And when there's a train arriving, there's no warning signal nor any announcements in multiple languages, what is common in the aforementioned Asian cities. There is also no turnstiles or barriers between the subway area and the outside, you don't tap your card on scanners, but you just board trains with a ticket, which you have to keep with you at all times and there are random controls by officers, who dress up like normal people. We had such control one time, the guy stood next to us and wore a normal jacket, was unshaved and dressed pretty casually. Suddenly he said "ticket control" and showed us and other passengers his ID. The fine for not having a ticket is 70€.
The Vienna U-Bahn frustrated me few times, but after few rides I got used to it and we had no problems. But it definitely takes more time to get the grip of it than the Taipei MRT, my personal favorite subway system so far.
The Vienna U-Bahn frustrated me few times, but after few rides I got used to it and we had no problems. But it definitely takes more time to get the grip of it than the Taipei MRT, my personal favorite subway system so far.
The Birg-Cyrus hotel is old and a bit ran down, from the outside and inside. The only good things are that it's located very close (3min away) from a subway station (Keplerplatz), the rates are cheap (49€ per night) and the staff is very friendly. The whole area around the hotel is mostly inhabited by Turks, you have many shops with Turkish food (like kebab). Regarding the hotel, the room was not like it seemed on the photos we found online, it was old, the walls were a little dirty, the furniture seemed to be from the 80s, the sink was broken, there was a hole in the wall... but it was a big room (like an apartment) and the shower worked well. More about the hotel (with photos) here (in another post soon).
When we freshened up and after a longer rest, we decided to walk around the city and see the most prominent sights. My girl was so exhausted from the long flight, but she still managed to walk around Vienna's historic part with me. I was really impressed and amazed, how fit and determined she was. These are the main sights we saw that first day in Vienna:
The Naschmarkt, Vienna's most popular market. We just walked around here. You have a big variety of foods and especially fruits, but I wasn't really impressed. We left quickly.
The famous Hofburg, the biggest palace in central Vienna. This part is called Michael's wing and it's from the 18th century.
We saw many famous Lipizzaner horses (Lipicanci in Slovenian), which originally come from a stud farm in Lipica, a small village in Southwestern Slovenia, the pride of my country.
Heldenplatz is one of Vienna's famous squares. Adolf Hitler, the German führer had a famous speech here in 1938 at the annexation of Austria to Greater Germany.
Stephansdom in the middle of Vienna's historic center was completed in the year 1160 (makes it 850 years old!) is 107m tall and the most prominent landmark of Vienna. We walked around the whole cathedral and we even went inside. It's truly an amazing construction.
It was the last famous spot we visited that day. My girl was too tired and so was I. We went back to the hotel. The next day we only had few hours in Vienna, because we also planned to go to Bratislava in the afternoon. So I suggested we see another famous building before we leave: The Hundertwasserhaus.
After the Hundertwasserhaus, we checked out of our hotel and headed to Wien Südbahnhof (Vienna Southern Railway Station) to take the train to Bratislava at 1.25. We had like an hour to spend and I knew there's another lovely palace in the area:
This is the Upper part of the Belvedere palace. It was a sunny day and there were some Asian tourists around there. This lovely girl was happy to be in my photo (I guess :-P).
And then it was around 1 pm and we boarded the train to Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia. That will be the topic of my next blog post. Two days in Vienna really made us exhausted, but we were happy to see so much in such a short time. It wasn't my first time in Vienna (I think I've been at least 10 times here), but it was my girlfriend's first time in Vienna and Europe and she really liked it, which made me truly happy. Vienna is always worth a visit. I'm happy that I could show my girlfriend one of the most beautiful cities in the world. And then I showed her Bratislava...
[My post about GRAZ][My TRAVELS page][All photos by MKL, 2010]
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