Interrailing: Vienna

Austria, the country where Mozart lived, The Sound Of Music was filmed and where we visited for the next part of our trip.

Our stay in Vienna has been quite short as we arrived quite late on the first day and left really eary on the last day, so really, we’ve just had two full days.

We arrived very tired after a busy morning in Prague and then a 4.5 hour train. It was quite late but we found a small Italian just around the corner from our hostel for dinner. It feels like it’s been a very long time without pizza!

The next day we were ready for action and got up early for a walking tour. In Austria there are laws saying that tours can’t be offered as ‘free walking tours’ so we found one that was 15€ for a student. Okay, when I say ready for action, we were a few minutes late leaving and then couldn’t find the meeting point so we went to use McDonalds free wifi to replan.

It was already getting pretty hot (reached 34 degrees just after midday!) but we decided to persevere and do our own sight seeing.

Our first stop was St. Stephen’s Cathedral right in the very centre. It’s a 12th century cathedral that also contains the tombs of some of the Habsburg family. It also has an amazing, colourful tiled roof which I think is quite uncommon for churches.

You can pay 5.50€ to go up the tower or down into the catacombs but we didn’t do that. Instead, Fiona and I made a small donation so we could light a candle for one of our favourite teachers from school who recently passed away.

We then went round the corner to find Mozarts house. He lived here from 1784-1787 and now it’s been turned into a museum presenting his life and career as a composer. We decided we didn’t know enough about music to justify paying to enter.

After lunch sat in the Sigmund Freud Park, we headed for the museum that we were actually interested in; The Sigmund Freud Museum. Most of us studied Freud in psychology A level so I think we were kinda expecting a pretty messed up museum about his weird pseudosexual theories (I’m aware that probably isn’t the right word but if you know Freud then you’ll know what I mean). This flat used to be his family home and treatment room and a free audio guide tells you exactly what each room used to be. There are also pictures around so you can see what it looked like, including one of his famous bed which became a symbol of free thinking in psychoanalysis. There are also a lot of artifacts and old belongings that his youngest daughter Anna Freud has donated. In 1938 he paid 200,000€ (in today’s money) to move his family and all their belongings to London as they were Jewish under the Nazi regime. He eventually died of cancer there on the 23rd of September 1939.

As it was so hot and we were all shattered, we did a little bit more sight seeing and then went home.

Rathaus (town hall) with a film festival infront:

Court house:

Parliament:

National museum:

We decided to stay in for dinner and Fiona and Shalini made us all a yummy veggie pasta and salad. We were quite undersided about what to do in the evening. We didn’t think Vienna would be particularly good for a night out, especially on a Tuesday night but we went down the road to Travel Shack which seemed quite cool but wasn’t really the vibe we wanted. We instead went to the infamous Bermuda Triangle (apparently, people go there and return a few days later not knowing where they’ve been) and had a few drinks there instead. I’ve now decided that amaretto sour is my new favourite cocktail!

The next day we left later than planned (classics us) and got the metro out of the city to the Royal Palace. This used to be the summer house of the Habsburg family and looks exactly like I’d imagine a a palace – although maybe not a brown colour.

The palace is part of a huge collection of attractions and you can buy one ticket that covers all of them. But we were here for one main thing; THE ZOO!! We bought tickets from the automatic machines and it was 8€ for a child up to 18 (or a group of 21 year olds that look 18) or 16.50€ for an adult and then we went and acted like children all day long! My highlight was probably the koalas because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a koala in real life! I’m just sad I couldn’t cuddle them!

Built in 1752, it’s the oldest zoo in the world and currently holds the award for the best zoo in Europe (although I’d disagree and say London Zoo is better!). I sang my way around the zoo (filmed on snapchat) but sadly, I can’t seem to upload videos via the blogger app so you may have to wait – although you might not want to hear my awful singing of the lion king and Nellie the elephant!

After the zoo we tried to find the maze. However, we have come to a conclusion that the whole complex is a maze and an actual maze does not exist because we couldn’t find it! Also in the area there is a desert house, Palm house, kids museum, entrance to the palace and more so definitely worth checking it out if you’re in Vienna!

I’m now on a train to Budapest, slightly nervous about what’s going to greet is when we get there! I’ve just got a whatsapp from mum saying that they have now allowed all the migrants on trains so I’m sooooo glad we’re travelling into Budapest instead of out!!

I feel like we’ve had quite a short, brief time in Vienna, but I’m really looking forward to Budapest when two more of our friends are joining us!!

Extra facts

Country: Austria
Country Population: 8.4 million
Spoken language: German
Unit of currency: Euro (€)
Time zone: GMT +1

Food rating: 7/10

Boy rating: 7/10

Boy creepiness rating: 4/10

Tackiest gift: anything with I <3 Wien on it because we’ve spent the whole few days saying the word Weiner. Cheeky.

What I would do different: do a walking tour so we understood what we were seeing.

Annalise x

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