We had a little bit of a sleep in this morning, and then tried to get the coffee machine working. It was either broken or we were too dumb to figure it out – I’m guessing 50/50 chance. I’m just glad we didn’t buy any milk last night.
Took a walk to a different Billa supermarket, and picked up lots of chocolate nut wafers and peanut butter bars as souvenirs for our students/co-workers back in Japan. The staff wore a funny expression on his face as we bought stacks and stacks of these things. I just said, “These are really delicious.”
Had our coffees down in the hotel lobby, maybe they are making sales based on the broken coffee machines in the rooms. The staff were once again super kind and everyone spoke English well. After I paid the bill the staff watched us go and waved goodbye.
In our room we did our final packing (including all those wafers and snacks) and then left for the station to catch a train to Vienna. The station was pretty busy, and we had to kill a little time outside until finally they posted the track number of our train. However as we got close it turned out that we had read the number wrong, and so we stood around for a while until the number showed up. Then there was a major rush to the platform, but we were in a good position.
The train arrived a little early, and there was an initial rush to get seats. Luckily Kuniko is great at grabbing seats on trains and we got some comfortable ones.
On the hour-long train ride we sat and looked out the windows. There was a lot of agriculture and more windmills – today they weren’t spinning. Next to Kuniko a Serbian(?) guy struck up a conversation – he works at Heathrow airport in London and was doing a little traveling. While he was nice there was another bossy guy walking around making sharp comments to his companion. A scary dude or just under a lot stress?
Along the route we passed some very new train stations that were being completed. Judging from all the open fields and empty space I couldn’t understand who was going to use the stations in the future.
Soon enough we rolled into the newly renovated Vienna train station. It was really nice – lots of shops/restaurants and wide open spaces so easy to navigate with luggage. We walked across the street to check into our next hotel – another Motel One like we had used in Innsbruck. This time our room was on the eleventh floor and we once again had a great view of the city. The room was spacious with a really cool wide chair – exactly like I would like to have up in our library at home. Can I fit it into my suitcase?
From there we went by subway only two stops out to the lively Stephenplatz, and had lots of good memories of our previous trip to Vienna. Did a little sightseeing while we made our way to Demel – it was quite crowded on the streets. The Demel cafe was also really crowded – it looked like we’d have to wait in line for a while. We had eaten here before (and you can buy the Demel cakes in Kansai anyway) so we went back out on the street and chose a cafe at random with shade and outdoor seating. Turned out to be an Italian place, so we had wine and panini while we watched all the tourists.
Next to us a group of older Americans were keeping a low profile while they ate, in contrast to some of the other Americans we have come across on this trip. The food and wine were OK but nothing we’d remember for long.
From here we walked over to St. Stephen’s Cathedral which is inspiring no matter how many times you see it. I wasn’t sure we had been inside last time so we walked through it this time, and I think it was the first time for me. Lots of cathedrals on this trip but I enjoyed this one quite a bit.
We both felt like even though we had spent a long time in Vienna last time we were here it felt somehow more elegant this time around. Maybe we were tired the last time we were here? Despite all the tourists the city was quite beautiful, and it was nice just to take it all in without needing to rush from place to place.
After the cathedral we stopped in at the Manner shop. This shop saved us the last time we were here as it was the only store open in the area selling souvenirs. Unfortunately this time there was an odd smell in there (horse pee?) so we didn’t buy anything and went instead to go look for an early dinner.
Since we were in Vienna we went looking for wieners, and found a restaurant called Zwolf Apostokeller – an underground cellar/restaurant. It was still just the middle of the afternoon so we walked right in and got a seat. The design of the place was such that unfortunately the toilet aromas from upstairs were wafting down into the dining area – not good. But we did manage to get some good food out of it.
We had burenwurst (excellent!), debrecziner (spicy sausages – only so-so), and extrawurst (sliced sausages splashed in vinegar, similar to bologne). We also drank lots of red wine. We liked the St. Laurents better than the Zweigelt, both local wines that we saw elsewhere in Austria.
Our waiter was a little weird, he was focusing most of his attention on a big group of Spanish customers, so we didn’t stick around too long after eating. We caught the train back towards the train station, and then checked out the ticket machines as we’ll need an early train to the airport the next morning.
We went over to the big Billa+ supermarket and did some shopping for our evening: a couple bottles of kefir, two mini bottles of sparkling wine, some water and a salad. We do miss eating veggies! We also walked through the HEMA store near the station. It was kind of a ripoff of Flying Tiger, and it was fun to listen to Kuniko talking through all her shopping options. She was asking me lots of questions but soon I realized that she really wasn’t asking me but herself. This was a situation were my presence was totally superfluous.
So back to the room where we watched the view of the city from the totally cool double wide chair that I wanted to steal. While we ate and drank we saw many young people checking into the youth hostel across the way. A quick google search told us that it was only 9 euros a night! I prefer private toilets and sleeping arrangements but, wow – what a great price!
We’ll do final packing tomorrow for our return journey back to Japan.
