Around The World Without Flying: Vienna Part 3 - a strange hotel, the Schonbrunn Palace, and the locals

Since I was going to return to Vienna on my long train journey to London, whilst the river ship was berthed in Vienna I took the opportunity to travel on a shore excursion to Bratislava in Slovakia. I will talk about that very worthwhile journey in my next post.

In this post I will complete my series on Vienna by talking about the time I spent there on my own, which was from 14 June to 17 June.

It took quite some time to wait for my room in the intriguing hotel into which I was booked in Vienna. This hotel was right in St Stephen’s Square, but it had such a narrow frontage it took me a little while to find it. (Taxis cannot go into the square.) When I walked through the entrance door, all I could see was a narrow passage with little lighting and no signs of any kind - and most puzzling of all, no reception desk. Fortunately a gentleman arrived and saw me looking confused and told me the reception desk is on the sixth floor. (Who could have expected that?) He was heading up to the same lobby, so up we went and there was a small reception desk, a small lobby and quite a small bar lounge area. Then I was told my room would not be ready for three hours. Loathe to leave my backpack which held my computer and all my travel documents at this not particularly welcoming place, I sat there and waited, and waited.

When I was eventually shown to my room through very dark passageways, I was quite startled to find a room with a huge glass ‘cage’ in the centre. Seeing the puzzled look on my face, the porter said “That’s your shower!”. Making a mental note to remember to draw the curtains at the window before I took a shower, and at this point feeling very glad I was travelling alone, I asked “So there’s no bathroom?”, whereupon I was shown a ‘box’ in the room, which was the toilet. It had a translucent door, but at least there was some privacy. A basin between the two completed the ‘bathroom’.

By the time I unpacked what I needed for the next couple of days, I was too exhausted to go on a long hike, so I just wandered around St Stephen’s Square and a couple of streets off the square and had an early dinner at a local cafe. I ordered one of Vienna’s famous wiener schnitzels but left most of it - it was very disappointing. I made another mental note - don’t eat there again. (At least I had a superb one at my hotel in Salzburg a couple of days later, which more than made up for that.)

The next morning I went on an organised tour entitled ‘Historic Vienna City Tour with Schonbrunn’. This was the most poorly run and disappointing tour of my travels thus far, but I will not bore you with the details. However, the Schonbrunn Palace was an amazing place to see - absolutely over-the-top in its very ornate design and decor, but nevertheless a stunning exhibition of incredible craftsmanship and artistry. We were not permitted to take photographs in the rooms we were allowed to see, but I did buy an excellent book about the powerful Maria Theresa in the bookshop. The more I heard about this intriguing woman, the more I wanted to know.

The next day I decided my suitcase was getting too heavy - I really needed time out to gather all the bits and pieces I had been collecting, and the small gifts I had been purchasing, and post them back home. I decided Austria would be a reliable place to do so. It took quite a long time to organise them and hike to the nearest post office, which I found out was several blocks away. It then took nearly 2 hours at the post office to go through all the rigmarole of purchasing the envelopes and boxes, which you had to do before you were allowed to fill them or write on them, then filling out all the documents and posting them. I am sure that the very patient man at the counter - the only one who could speak English - breathed a sigh of relief when I left. (He had to weigh everything, process all the documents, put two copies in little plastic bags and attach them to the parcels, add the stamps, etc., so it took him quite a while in between all the other customers - and there were lines of them because by now it was mid-Friday afternoon. And only two people were serving everyone.)

That evening, my last night in Vienna, I went back to the Schonbrunn Palace for another wonderful concert. Surprisingly, the venue was much simpler than the other one, but the concert which featured an orchestra, a soprano and a tenor, was equally fantastic. I have so missed classical music on my journey.

On the way back to the hotel my taxi driver proved to be quite a character - for the whole trip, he waxed lyrical on Trump. In fact, I had an equally interesting though less politically charged conversation with the taxi driver going to the concert, but we were mainly discussing how the lanes on the roads were too narrow for big coaches (my heart had been in my mouth many times), and all the problems with speeding young men in the Ferraris or on their motor bikes, which then led to discussions about all manner of other things, including all the dreadful graffiti along the banks of the main river that flows through the city (not the Danube). It is mostly in areas that are full of outdoor cafes. What a shame that such a beautiful city is despoiled like that!

So, my time in Vienna was over, and I was sorry to leave this beautiful city. I know I should have seen so much more, even though it rained much of the time, but I needed to slow my pace. However, my next stop was Salzburg, which I loved and have written about already.

I have nearly caught up with my posts. Yesterday I was in Estonia, and today and tomorrow I am in St Petersberg (two days of 10-hour excursions), but those stories will have to wait for a few days until I catch up with the posts about Bratislava and Budapest.