Austria part 2 - Vienna

Sunday Oct 12

After 2 days in Munich, we arrive at Vienna at 4:30PM. As our appointment with Minah, our Couch Surfing host was at 8PM, we had some hours to walk around.

We crossed the Parliament, the City Hall where a circus was performing (!!!). 

The weather was nice so people were happy drinking and eating out. People in Vienna are less dressed than in Innsbruck. A lot go by bike. And the public transportation is very good. We had a stay in Museum Quarter, they had those very comfortable half seat half bed where you can be two on it, talking, dreaming, debating or enjoying the free wifi :-) :-)

Minah arrived with Lilith (!!!) her little dog. Minah, half Moroccan, half Korean, hosts us in the apartment she lives with her Korean mother. Student in medicine, she is also involved in a lot of alternative projects, talking with her is so interesting and we learnt so many vibrant things about this beautiful city that at first, looks so quiet

Monday Oct 13

We started the day quite early and headed directly to Belvedere to admire, amongst others, Klimt's work. Belvedere was prince Eugene's residence and reception's hall. As it was built into 2 parts: the upper and the lower castles, they decided to sell 2 separated tickets at the cost of 12.5E each (!!!!!). We stayed the whole morning in the upper castle, until hunger drove us away for lunch. I wanted a cheap hot place, so we ended up in Mc Donald (!!!!).

Later, with Minah, we went to Opera house and what a chance, we found two tickets for the next day's presentation of Mozart's Idomeneo at a reasonable price (still it was very expensive for our budget now) of 65E instead of 125E. (In fact we had to separated seats, one with the normal price of 33E and one of 33E instead of 92E).

Before going home, Minah showed us some quite interesting alternative places: the restaurants where you can eat then pay as much as you want

or the public fridge where people can freely serve what it's inside (mostly fruits and veggies collected from different places i.e supermarkets....). At home, Minah's mother had prepared already the dinner, for our joy, with lots of veggies and rice, and kimchi :-)

Tuesday Oct 14

We talked so much at breakfast that we left home finally only at 10 AM. Last day in Vienna. We visited the Schönbrunn Palace. It was very green and pleasant. and uphill, we had this nice view over Vienna.

Then, the highlight of the day: the Opera. 

We felt uneasy right away being the only two in sportswear among all those beautiful, dressed up to the nines people! The opera house is quite nice , but the performance was a disappointment, a bit far from our expectation (and everybody's....). It's a bit frustrating but we soon got over it :-) :-) We had our consolation with the wonderful pumpkin soup that Minah's mother had prepared for us. That's another fun thing about Vienna: you can have, out of town, a plot of land where you can cultivate whatever you want and be sure of your own organic food :-)

Wednesday Oct 15

We spent most of the day in the bus to get back to Innsbruck. At some point in Germany, we got a control from German police, they took all non-German and non-Austrian passports and checked it through-fully every page!!!! A bit further, some other policemen stopped the bus again but at the drivers protests, they let us go. It's so weird! We wandered if they may look for someone....

At the end of the day, we get to Innsbruck. Our bikes were still at the campsite, in good shape :-). We quickly set up the tent and prepared for dinner. In the kitchen, we got acquainted with Wayne, alias Gypsy who's been on the road for 38 years. He is an expert in clean water supply's solution and had worked and travelled all over the world. Impressive. He told us about Horizons Unlimited and started telling us his own adventures. We stayed with him till Morpheus dragged us back to our tent.

End of Austria. Tomorrow we will be in Italy!!!!