Thursday 16 May 2013

                               3rd - 7th July 2012



Debs:  

As we approached Vienna the temperature climbed until we reached familiar ground in the mid-30’s, nice on the beach but pretty damned hot in bike gear in traffic!

We had booked into an Ibis Express hotel, a cheap version of the posh group, and as we arrived we saw that outside the hotel stood about 20 young lads in sports gear, so I thought they were leaving but wrong again, they were just checking in and were to be joined by another eight teams from around Europe for a week-long tournament. The thought of 200+ youths bouncing round the hotel concerned us, but to be honest we never heard a peep from them..  What good lads.

We dumped the bags in the foyer and Steve went off to park the bike in the underground car park (free of charge, the receptionist having suggested that he ride round the barriers). That bit went well, but unfortunately he forgot the room keycard and had to walk up 8 flights of stairs as the lift needs the card to work.  So it was a very hot and weary Steve when he got to the room, gasping for a cold beer and a shower in either order..

Steve’s daughter Holly was flying in to join us for a few days, so we set off for the station with little idea of which train to get, so I followed my immediate instinct to jump on the first train that came along and hope for the best - a great plan that didn’t work as we only made one station before discovering we were heading in the wrong direction! Back to the station again and this time found the main booking hall and were directed to the Flugafen (airport) . 
We made it with time to spare and texted her to say that we were drinking beer at the hotel, knowing that she would have a gentle panic trying to find her way to the hotel on her own. When she appeared at the arrivals gate I called out “Tours for the underprivileged.. cheap sightseeing trips of Vienna”  and was rewarded by a great smile as she saw us waiting.
A quick dash back to the hotel to drop off her bags, and then into town for supper. Vienna is a bright, bustling city with loads of restaurants, unfortunately mostly Italian but tasty nevertheless. We had a great evening and looked forward to a sound nights sleep, unfortunately this didn’t really happen as the mosquitoes were busy picking on Steve and the air conditioning was rather ineffectual so we cooked, but at least the washing dried.

Breakfast at the hotel was a cheapie at £5 a hit and the whole place heaving with young athletic hockey players - Holly thought she was in heaven! So after a good feed and loads of coffee we set off for the centre of Vienna for the Spanish Riding School - this was a me and Holly thing, with Steve trying to look interested.. 
The  Lipizzaner stallions had actually finished their season and gone off for a holiday, which seems to be the story where ever I go, but they had a collection of mares, foals and 3 year olds from the stud for us to see. Apart from seeing 8 young stallions set free in the indoor school to play fight it was all a bit of nothing much, but just to be in that magnificent building was enough for me.



Time for lunch then back to the Spanish Riding School for a guided tour of the stables and other facilities, as a general ‘walkabout’ and obviously intended for tourists, but I did my ‘how clean are your stables’ thing and noticed dirty tack and hairy saddle cloths left on saddles.. Tsk, tsk!  That being said we enjoyed ourselves enormously, it‘s an historic and wonderful building and the horses are beautiful..

Back to the hotel for a shower and a snooze before going out for supper. This time we found a ‘Norsee’ fish restaurant, which reminded me of a posh canteen, and they had every kind of fish and shell fish plus the food and the wine was the cheapest in town - a real hit. After this we wandered around the stalls and shops, stopping for more wine and coffee en route to catch the train back to our hotel. What a great way to spend an evening

The following morning we joined the heaving masses for breakfast before heading out to the Schonbrunn Palace, not the most attractive of buildings but a welcome break from yet another boiling hot day, so for the next two hours we shuffled our way round the State apartments of the Habsburg monarchs and the notorious Marie Antoinette. It was actually very interesting, but probably best visited in the winter .. so a quick ice cream was called for and then off to see the gardens. By now Steve had decided it was just too hot to leave the shelter of a nice  big tree, so Holly and I went off without him.

The gardens were very pretty, but not as lavish as Versailles or some of the other French Palaces, and the gradient was just too much on such a hot day so as this was a bit of a whistle stop tour and we too were feeling the heat it was back to find that Steve had migrated to a café and was enjoying a cold beer.

That night we went back to the fish restaurant for a final supper with Holly as we were all going our separate ways the following day.

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