All those who wander are not lost....w

Today was a day of wandering! After a chilled morning Eimear and myself headed off around to explore the city and do some shopping. We started in the same direction that we usually took to the centre and then started to head off in different directions. We were like magpies...every time something caught our eye we walked towards it. This resulted in us discovering how accessible everything was to our accommodation.

In all honesty there is no need to take a bus tour around Vienna. The one we did was unimpressive and bottom of the list in regards all the tours I have done. That includes being lower that Barcelona where I fell asleep for an hour of it. All of the main sights are in close proximity to one another so there is no need for the bus as there wasn't much information included from the recorded tour guide. We went from Graben square, to the university to the city hall to the Parliament building to the Holfburg palace and back towards Graben square again all within a couple of hours. That included strolling, taking plenty of shameless selfies and most importantly snack time!! We racked up about 8,000 steps in our stroll around central Vienna.

Following a rondezvous with Ais we hit the shops and continued with our strolling around. The magnets needed to be purchased and the famous Austrian Mozart chocolate located. We stumbled across a huge department store called Steffl. It reminded me of Brown Thomas and Maceys. Loads of floors with designer gear whereby the ground floor cosmetics are the only thing we could afford to purchase. To our delight it had a sky restaurant on the top floor so we could have our dinner with an idylic view of the Dom and the the cityscape.

Here I finally I got my hands on vegetables. This has become my ultimate battle every time I am away. Anyone who knows me can attest that I am not the most prevelant vegetable eater but I do eat veggies every day. Austrians love their meat and it is the focal point of every dish. Then you will get rice, potatoes or chips with it. The end!! No veg or if you do it is a small selection of raw red onion with ribs, as was my experience during the week. Madness!! Thankfully in this restaurant there was an Asian option on the menu so I was able to get a vegetable stir fry with meet. Veggie heaven! Despite the random vegetable we couldn't identify.

For our final night in Vienna we headed to the banks of the Danube. We had initially planned to go the bars by the riverside on Thursday but the thunder and lightening put a stop to that. All along the river they have bars set up with sand to give the impression of a beach. As a landlocked country I suppose you have to go to extreme measures in some cases. We had great fun down there drinking our new favourite drinks, the Hugo. This is a combination of prosecco, mint, lime and elderflower! Delicious!! We will miss them when we leave Austria. We kept forgetting that all the Austrians have excellent English so who knows what they made of our random conversations!!ha I was probably safe though because I was told once again on this trip that I talk very fast!! It had its perks sometimes.

A quick pitstop in a photobooth finished off our night in a fit of laughter. We were howling trying to all fit into the booth and the picture phrame. We managed it and the result is very entertaining. A perfect evening to finish off a great few days in Vienna!!Read more