Europe Travel Diary: Vienna

Our Europe Travel Diary is an informal rundown of our day-to-day activities whilst travelling around Europe. This diary entry is based on our three nights in Vienna. If you are after recommendations for Vienna instead, we have a Vienna Travel Guide coming soon!

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Day 28: Zagreb to Vienna

_31/10/2021

We arrived in Vienna at around 2pm and found a taxi rank across the road where a very nice man took us to our hostel. The Wombats City Hostel Naschmarkt had a really nice relaxed atmosphere with its own social area; there also seemed to be a lot of people around the place which was very welcoming. Our dorm ended up being one of the furthest away from the stairs which meant quite a walk around all the hallways to get there. Despite this, we eventually got to our eight-bed dorm and found ourselves a bunk to share.

On our way to the room we bumped into a Dutchman who, after finding out we were English, decided to warn us that as it was Halloween, we should under no circumstances leave the hotel as “everyone targets the English on Halloween”. We weren’t sure if he was joking or not, as it was quite an odd interaction, but we decided to ignore him and leave the hostel anyway, mainly because Alex was hungry.

With that weird conversation behind us, we dumped our bags and headed around the corner to a cafe which had gluten-free bagels!! We then sat and discussed our plans for our stay in Vienna and decided today was the best day to check out Prater Wien.

The metro station was only around the corner so it didn’t take long for us to catch a train and head to the famous funfair. However, for the next couple of hours, everything seemed to go downhill. As we’d heard great things about the Chocolate Museum we thought there would be no better place to start.

Despite having good views online, we found that it was mostly aimed at children so we were very much underwhelmed. Even though Alex can be a child 90% of the time, we both agreed the “museum” was horrendous. Nothing epitomised how bad the museum was more than the “sculptures”; despite being made to look like it was covered in chocolate, they were just painted polystyrene models. Moreover, half the exhibits were not working, not turned on or completely gutted out. The last straw was the fact that we weren’t able to make our own chocolate let alone taste any of the other chocolate; you’d think that would be included in the price of a museum ticket. But in actual fact, you had to pay €30 extra (!!!) for the privilege.

We obviously complained and tried to get our money refunded but the staff refused on the grounds that there was no manager on shift; it even got to the stage where they were blaming each other as one was apparently new. After eventually getting bored of waiting, we left in a bad mood having paid €15 each for an awful experience.

As you can imagine, we both absolutely hate wasting money and we were both quite overtired by this stage. I suggested that we take a ride on the bumper cars in an attempt to cheer ourselves up; it definitely made Alex feel a lot better as he ended up targetting some poor kids. One young girl did get her own back and proceeded to menacingly grin from ear to ear having given me whiplash. Feeling a little better, we made our way to the Rollercoaster Bar where all the food and drink are delivered to you on rails controlled by robots. It was a very cool experience and the alcohol was much needed to help cheer us up more.

All in all, Prater Park was great fun and very pretty to walk around. We’d definitely recommend visiting (it’s free to enter), just maybe not the Chocolate Museum.

As you’ll know by now, hunger always creeps up on us and we’re never in a good position to cure our hunger. This was another one of those situations where, in the middle of Vienna, we found ourselves quite hungry. Even in our worst of hungry states, we will always refuse to go somewhere we consider expensive; this was particularly difficult as we found Vienna to be quite expensive. Nonetheless, we lasted a whole 30 minutes, going from one side of Vienna to our hostel, before settling on an Afro-fusion restaurant opposite our hostel. Turned out the food was really yummy and would definitely recommend visiting Lambrecht if you get the chance.

We then went back to our hostel over the road and bumped into our new Kiwi roommate Tunnels; he convinced us to head down to the hostel bar for some drinks as it’d be the last night it was open and it was Halloween. We eased ourselves into it and eventually got talking to everyone, meeting people from India, Taiwan, Spain, America, everywhere! Eventually, when the bar closed at 2am, we headed to bed; maybe the Dutch guy who warned us not to go out as we’d die was still in the back of our minds.

Day 29: Vienna

_01/11/2021

Given our late night the day before, we had a bit of a lie-in and caught up on some washing (as is the joys of travelling) before making our way into the city in search of food. As always, we decided to get something traditional so went to a Wurstelstand which sold classic Austrian sausage. I had mine diced with chips, as I couldn’t eat the bread, whilst Alex had an amazing hot dog that was the size of his arm. The stand ended up being right next to the Hofburg and its beautiful gardens so it’d have been rude not to visit.

Whilst we did have two full days to see the sites of Vienna, my ankle was starting to hurt from all the walking we’d been doing. We (reluctantly) agreed that in order to make the most out of our stay, we’d have to get on the “classic tourist”, Hop-on, Hop-Off bus tour. Whilst a 24-hour pass was 70€ for us both, it did give us access to two different routes and would literally take us everywhere in the city. Effectively, it costs 17.5€ ticket for one person for one bus ride and to see half of Vienna on it; that’s definitely not bad (I’m trying to justify it to myself here).

Anyway, we first hopped on the blue route which took us around the Southwestern/Southern part of the city. Whilst we hadn’t planned on getting off, the audio guide said that the Schonbrunn Palace gardens were free to walk around.

Turns out, it was the best decision we had made whilst being in Vienna; the gardens were huge, very autumnal and really pretty in the dying sun (hopefully the pictures will attest to this). Beyond the palace there was a further vantage point which Alex decided to walk up; it looked like another mountain so I left him to it but he found some really nice views overlooking the city.

We then hopped back onto the bus and finished the rest of the blue route. Each route took just under two hours so by the time we had finished this route, we thought it’d be best to smash out the red route. This would allow us some well-deserved chill time the following day and not feel like we missed anything out. Turns out, we ended up getting the last bus which meant we had the top deck of the bus to ourselves to enjoy the sites of the city in darkness.

Once we’d eventually finished, we were absolutely exhausted and hungry (shock) so we took the metro back to our hostel, met up with our Kiwi friend and went out for some traditional Austrian cuisine. Alex had, what seemingly resembled, a giant ham and cheese croquette whilst I had some roast beef. Alex and Tunnels each had a traditional Austrian Apple Strudel and both agreed it was the best they’d ever had. I can also confirm that the strudel was very nice. We three continued to chat and drink for a few hours before heading home in the pouring rain.

Day 30: Vienna

_02/11/2021

Today was another lay-in. Thankfully it rained until mid-day which fitted in with our schedule perfectly. Once we did rise, we were obviously quite hungry so decided to head over to the Naschmarkt opposite. However, we couldn’t find anything gluten-free so we settled on a bag of olives; unfortunately, this meant we walked straight into a classic tourist trap. Despite the market seller speaking perfect English, we attempted to say we didn’t need €15 worth of olives but gave up telling him to take more out of the bag. Having paid €8 for our HUGE bag of olives, we only ate five each so ended up feeling quite defeated. Rumour has it that these olives are still in the fridge at Wombat’s City Hostel Vienna.

We then set off to Zentrum von Wien, Vienna’s main square, and it reminded us a lot of Oxford Street in London with its big buildings and bustling crowds. Alex’s first priority was to get a patch, which we found surprisingly quite easy. We then plonked ourselves in the centre of the square, so that Alex could nose about and people watch. Whilst Alex chose a Bailey’s hot chocolate, I satisfied my cravings with a classic English breakfast tea; god I miss tea so much! Given the day’s exhausting events, we headed back to the hostel for some chill time.

As our day is based solely on eating, we plucked up the energy to visit another traditional Austrian restaurant with our newly acquainted friends. The food was again amazing and Alex had a schnitzel about the size of his head (excessively large) whilst I had a traditional chicken, bacon and sausage shish kebab with chips. As you can probably tell by the photos, we needed rolling out; to an Irish bar around the corner for some ciders. Myself, Alex and Tunnels then walked Rita home before heading home to pack for an early start the next day. On our journey we did stumble across the city’s main shopping street that we didn’t know existed; moneywise, it was probably a good thing we didn’t know about it.

Day 31: Vienna to Budapest

_03/11/21

As with every other travel day, it started with an early morning. Unfortunately, every other person in the room decided to either come in really late or leave really early whilst making tons of noise in the process. This meant that I got hardly any sleep at all which was incredibly annoying; Alex on the other hand slept like a baby. Despite this, we jumped onto the metro to the huge train/bus station and found ourselves a coffee and some food. We got here in plenty of time so we knew where our bus was leaving from.

Vienna’s International Busterminal was as big as it sounds and has buses departing from either side of the train station. Alex first visited the information desk inside the train station to find out where our bus was departing from. Unfortunately, Alex was told he only knew about trains; a great load of help and quite perplexing for an information desk. As you can imagine our stress levels were dramatically increasing a departure time kept approaching. We even discussed what our backup plan would be should we end up missing our bus – book another Flixbus.

After we got rejected by the desk, we wandered around the station looking for anyone else to help us; they couldn’t. We then went back to the station’s entrance and asked a random Austrian bus driver for directions. Thankfully, he pointed in the direction of some bus shelters and said we needed to go over there; at this point, it was 15 minutes from departure time so our stress levels were peaking.

We ran in the direction that the driver had pointed and realised this was the main bus terminal in Vienna; I can assure you we weren’t being dumb at all as there were literally no signs anywhere! Only at each individual shelter was a board detailing the bus timetable. Thankfully, we spotted Flixbus’ shelter and joined others waiting for the bus to arrive. We got here with 10 minutes to spare and breathed a sigh of relief when we hopped on.

Vienna Summary

While if you had asked us at the time, we probably would have said we didn’t enjoy our trip to Vienna, we have different opinions now. It definitely is an expensive city in Europe to visit and the quality often doesn’t seem worth it. Vienna is a beautiful city and reminded us of a lot of areas in London. The highlights were definitely the bus tour and Prater Wien. I’m not sure we would ever revisit but for a short trip, it is very enjoyable and I am glad we went.