Vienna - a beginning and an end

We're arrived in Vienna! Although there was a moment in the train where it looked like it was going to be a mission.

Train travel in Europe is fantastic. It's so very easy to show up, jump on and your in another country in a matter of hours, sometimes only one. But when everything is mostly in another language and there is sporadic English words in the timetables you can sometimes find yourself on the wrong train.

Arriving early to the Salzburg train station we found that there were several trains departing for vienna, so we hoped on the next one to leave and off we went. As the beautiful snowy countryside sped past the train inspectors were checking everyone's tickets. When I showed the lady ours her words "we've got a problem" we're definitely not we were expecting or desired haha.

Apparently, much like an airport, there are several train companies that depart from the train station and the one we had chosen was not the company we had boarded - oh no!

She pointed on my ticket and indicated the next station we could get off at to join our actual train. Unlike TFL who made a mistake and charged us for their error, this company didn't mention a ting, probably realising we were Aussies from the outback. Thanks Westbahn, you have awesome staff and we greatly appreciated it!! The train was beautiful and I will definitely be looking into your timetable when I next come back to Europe for both your train and hospitality.

So off we got and spent a lovely 30mins standing track side in the middle of nowhere, in the snow awaiting our actual train - superb haha

When we did eventually arrive in Vienna we made our way to Hotel Austria. This was the hotel I stayed in when I first landed from Australia. It seems kind of symbolic and nice that I ended my trip with Mum, Dad and Dan where I began my trip 12 months ago.

Hotel Austria is a beautiful hotel, located on the edge of Old Town. It has the most amazing breakfast and it's like a bit of old Vienssen glamour but without the price tag.

Tonight our adventure of misdirections continued as we tried to find a place to do washing. After being directed by the hotel to a dry cleaners we set off on a 10 minute walk in the dark through the rain only to be told by the office that they were taking no more customers until Monday! As Dan hadn't done washing for almost a fortnight this was not an option for those of us sharing a room with him haha.

So back we went and got a cab to the closest Green and Clean. These places are fab in Vienna, I tried one when I was here with Contiki. It's biggest asset is it's all in one wash & dry machines!

With clothes washed and dried and a few beers put away we returned to our hotel and headed out to a local restaurant. Welcome to Vienna!Read more