Kathy and Garths Excellent Sunday Adventure

Sunday August 3rd.

We love hop on hop off bus tours! Generally every time we go to a new city we use them for at least one day to get the lay of the land.  However, the two bus lines here get terrible reviews so we decided not to do either of them. The fact is that most of the historical sites of Vienna are in a walk-able zone right within the city centre. We have been walking since we arrived on Wednesday night. I have blisters and Garths knee is bothering him a little so today we decided to do our own tour. Keep in mind that when we travel we have a plan but rarely have a schedule.

We started by buying two 24 hour passes on the public transit. We pushed all the right buttons and put our 50 Euro bill in the slot - it kept getting spit out. Finally after the third spit the man at the next machine told us told that the machine does not take 50's....OK, problem solved.

So many choices so little time!

We jumped on the first tram that went by heading the the direction of the Prater - we wanted to see the ferris wheel with booths. We could see the ferris wheel in the distance but once we got seated we became typical tourists and the stop came and went. Before we knew it we were at the turn around point of the tram and back we came. This time we got off. We arrived smack in the middle of Hundertwasser House- one of Austria's architectural highlights.  We walked around for awhile and the surrounding buildings were so high we lost track of where the ferris wheel was. Oh well, seen one ferris wheel seen them all! On the way back to the tram we came across an interesting museum but did not go in! The Museum of Fakes!

Back on the tram and our next stop was this beautiful fountain that we later learned is called Hochstrahlbrunnen.  The fountain was erected to commemorate the opening of the Vienna water pipeline. 

From the fountain we could see St. Charles Church so we wandered over. It is one of the most outstanding baroque churches in Vienna.

Well on our way and feeling like we were making great use of our transit ticket we jumped on Tram 2 making our way to Belvedere Palace.  Before long we figured out that we were indeed going the wrong way. We were enjoying the scenery and needed a rest so we just thought we would stay on until it returned. We had a lovely ride through District 19 all the way to Nussdorerf.  For the first time a voice came over the PA - of course it was in Austrian but we both understood the final words:  Auf Wiedersehen! Great, the tram had come not only to the end of the road, but the end of it's day!
We got off and I guess looked bewildered as an older gentleman tried to ask us if we wanted to go to the town - no, we want to go back to Vienna. He pointed us in the right direction to catch another tram and within 5 minutes we were  headed back to  Belvedere Palace.

Simply beautiful!

Of course we came out a different way than we had gone in and jumped on the first tram.
 We had no idea where it was going but looked at the map and eventually figured out that it was heading to the cemetery.  On our walking tour the guide had told us that in the late 1800's Viennese people(aka WEINERS)  wanted to be buried within Vienna city proper but of course there just wasn't the space. The city purchased 600 hectares of land in 1863 for a cemetery but no one wanted to put their loved ones way out there. The mayor got the bright idea to move all the composers out there. Once Mozart, Beethoven Brahms and Strauss went the locals all followed!  Once again, we heard a voice come over the PA system, all this Austrian talk and then Auf Wiedersehen.  There are over 3 million people buried there and it is the second largest cemetery in the EU, but, given no choice, we got out. We walked in and looked at a map but could not make hid not hare of it. On the way out we spotted a first aid station so I went over and asked the man if he knew where Mozart was - he handed me a map and circled where all the composer were. No one really knows where Mozart is - it was a trick question.

Beethoven and Mozart

Brahms

Strauss

Schubert

The cemetery has three tram stops to give you an idea of its size and of course we were at the wrong stop. We hadn't eaten anything since breakfast so we walked across the road to a Gausthouse and had dinner. We figured we would need energy to walk back a few stops.  Schnitzel for me and goulash with dumplings for Garth! Never tire of either.

He cleaned that right up!

Jumped back on the tram, we realized that if we went on for a while we would reach the train station and we wanted to check on times to Bratislava so we got off . The train station is under major construction and it seemed like we walked for kilometers before we finally saw the Information sign. No one was around but the security people helped us with the automated machines and we got that detail all figured out . They pointed us to tram 18 to get back to the city.  Well, they may know thier way around a ticket machine but they sure do not know the tram lines. About twenty minutes later we realized that we were really in the boonies when we passed the sign Wien with a red line though it....aka you are leaving! Another Auf Wiedersehen! But the good news was we were at a U Bahn station. The bad news was that our ticket was only for the city. We got on the next train heading back and kept our fingers crossed that no one would check. Took the U Bahn all the way to St Stephens - got out and we were five minutes from the hotel. It had been a long long day. BUT... we had transit passes for another twelve hours so we freshened up and went back out to take some night pictures.

The Theater

Smallest coffee truck we have ever seen, 3 wheeler to boot.

 It started to rain on our excellent twelve hour adventure and we finally went back to the hotel and crashed!

AUF WIEDERSEHEN