Vienna, Austria - 26th Feb - 1st March

I left Cesky Krumlov by bus quite early in the morning, after a few hectic minutes in the tourist information office working out my best route out of the country, which I'd somehow forgotten to do beforehand. It ended up working like this: Bus to Ceske Budejovice; train to Linz, Austria then another train to Vienna Westbahnhof. From there, the route to my hostel was relatively simple, interrupted only by a obligatory consumption of a Schnitzel (it's a tradition, or an old charter, or something*). It being quite a nice hostel, and me being quite weary after a reasonably complex journey, I was happy just to freshen up and chill out a bit for a few hours before doing anything else. Eventually, as is the norm, I managed to develop a few friends and we headed out to the "Bermuda Triangle", one of Vienna's most famous bar areas, where we proceeded to sample a few local beverages at a leisurely rate, before finding a completely different route back to the hostel to the one we arrived by.

The next morning started quite slowly, and as I had no real plans, I decided to tag along with the 3 American girls from my dorm for the day. The day panned out thus: a visit to the modern art museum (which is made entirely of hardened lava), some rather extravagant (and equally expensive) cake in the famous Cafe Demel, a stroll to the town hall square, where all kinds of stalls were situated in the manner of a fair, and finally a visit to Castle Belvedere, where there was more art. I'm not really an arty person, but I was quite happy to take it all in, and some of it was actualy quite good :) That night was a laid-back affair, consisting of pizza, guitars and good conversation, followed by a good healthy sleep.

By Wednesday morning, the girls had departed for Zurich, so I was very much left to entertain myself again. To this end, I took a long walk to the outskirts of town and the former Imperial Palace of the Hapsburg Family - Schloss Schönbrunn. Having done a minor project on this in University, I found the Grand Tour I took (entirely in German! :D) very interesting, and was also quite amazed by the size and grandeur of the place. The history's also quite intriguing, and I recommend this to anyone who's not done it.

Upon exiting the palace and entering the gardens, I found myself faced with 2 options: catch the tube back into town and spend the afternoon there, or go to the Zoo. Guess where I ended up? In my defence, Tiergarten Schönbrunn is just as steeped in history as the palace itself, and it was a lovely day... Anyway, I had a great time, laughing at the lemurs, taunting the tigers and observing the ocelots. Actually, I didn't see any of those animals, but I was rather pleased about meeting the meerkats, who were huddling under a lamp for warmth, bless them! I was also a big fan of the South-east asian otters, who squeaked at me, the magical rainforest bats (I forget their actual name) and of course, the red pandas - an animal I've always wanted to see. They're great! Pictures of all of the above will be forthcoming upon my return to the UK..

Once I was finally finished pandering (no pun intended) to my inner child, I opted to go back into town anyway to experience the Naschmarkt. It was at roughly this point that the heavens opened, and I got more or less soaked. I did however, manage to acquire some South Tirolean smoked cheese and an assortment of olives before hopping on the tube back the the hostel to get dry. I then basically spent my evening in the common room, nibbling periodicaly on the above. Lovely!


*Copyright Robert Rankin, sometime, probably