Austria
It was time to put the inter-rail bookings to the test. Not, strictly speaking inter-rail tickets, which are only available to EU citizens, but Nightjet. 95EU for two of us plus 15EU to secure the compartment for yourselves. There’s no bedding but you can slide the seats down to fill in the space and give you a full size double bed. A local girl with multi coloured hair got chatting and ended up spending the night in our cabin as hers was full of 5 other people! We learnt a lot about autism! She was going to Vienna to meet a friend and watch a musical.
Vienna defeated me geographically. The accommodation was some distance from the station, in fact from pretty much everything and we had to contact someone, who had to contact the owner who came by bicycle to let us in. The apartment was quirky and we appreciated the washing machine, but not exactly convenient. We took the opportunity to test run the route to the Parkrun on our first afternoon and it paid off. I was pleased to get round without resorting to walking. We went to the coffee place but it was busy so we didn’t really get a chance to speak to anyone. I forgot my phone with bar code and had to create another ID. Just hope I can put them together later. In the afternoon we visited the Hundertwasser Haus and Village and were fascinated by his philosophy and design concepts , a cross between Michael Reynolds, Gaudi and Buckminster-Fuller and Ralph Nader.
Sunday surprised us when we found the clocks moved forward here too so we went out to Schonnbrun. It was huge and well organised. Inside the grounds, which are free for walking, running etc., was a market with stalls for food and crafts. We turned up at our allotted time and took the English guided tour, shuffling round with a set number of other people. It worked. Needless to say, the extremely ornate rococo architecture was way over the top and while I was prepared to be impressed by the skill of the workmanship John found it overwhelming. The Hapsburg dynasty needs some understanding. My knowledge of history and what was going on at the time was quite inadequate. Unfortunately the labyrinth and maze which are closed during the winter were still not open, so we dashed across town to find a charming old labyrinth painted on the ground at Evangelischekircke and I managed to get in and walk it while the gate was closed. We were able to exit through the florist’s shop which was associated with the cemetery.
Another mistake here. All the Museums were closed on Mondays, except for the Natural History Museum. So the Natural History Museum it was. Once we found it. All the buildings are extremely grand and could have been anything. Much of the collection came from a Hapsburg who had splashed the cash and there were acknowledgements that he had basically looted poorer countries, rather like William Burrell. It was raining and snowed at some point. On the other hand, we were quite pleased with ourselves for managing the left luggage lockers. We grabbed some flavoured kebabs in the station before the next night train. This time we were less friendly and kept the compartment for ourselves. The train split somewhere along the line with another section going to Innsbruck I think. Police or Border Guards came and looked around but apart from the shunting and a wait somewhere, it all went well.
