Trying to find the love in Vienna

After a standard hostel breakfast, we geared ourselves up for a hot day in Vienna. After being underwhelmed over our first few days we were determined to give Vienna another go. We had heard there were some great spots for op-shopping, and were directed to a stretch of road between our hostel and the centre of the city. Walking our way there, we found a few gems, and Andrew managed to pick up a shirt from a British-style 60s place, where the young attendant could have been mistaken for a mannequin in the store. We also found some goodies at a place that had everything from the 50s to the 80s, including some super hot short shorts we’d been searching for, ever since we’d hit Germany and Austria, but sadly nothing fitted.

It was then off to find some lunch, and we made our way towards the Rathausplatz, which had a film festival on in the evenings and food and drink stalls set up all through the day and into the night. The place was buzzing with people, and surrounded by stalls serving up various types of international food where everything is cooked freshly in front of you once you order. We struggled to decide what to eat, as it all looked amazing. After deciding on some teppanyaki, seafood risotto and greek platters, and leaving very full, we walked some more of the huge city. Struggling to find the Rachel Whiteread Holocaust Memorial (mainly due to the horrible directions supplied by the guidebook), we got a bit fatigued in the heat of the day, and almost gave up, but with a bit of help from the locals we finally found it. Designed to be harsh and unattractive, resembling a war bunker, the grey concrete work sits within a small square just off a main street.

We then walked to the Hofburg Imperial Palace, which houses many museums, but we stayed outside to walk the impressive facades, covered with sculptures. From there we made our way to the Secession museum, housing contemporary art. We had read about the Beethoven Frieze, an incredibly long work of art, but as it was wrapped around four walls inside, it was hard to grasp its impressive size, and was a bit disappointing after reading the hype. The rest of the museum had some interesting, and some very disturbing, exhibits. One research art project on the ‘UFO Bridge’ in Slovakia we had just seen, and one on a man doing documentary research in Budapest by opening up a shop in a rundown neighbourhood. There was also a very horrifically violent exhibition on animals and fur, which I ended up walking out of.

We returned to the Naschmarkt, which is the first place we’d been to in Vienna with Susanne and Sabine when we arrived, and after a stroll we decided to find somewhere for a cool drink. Since it was such a sunny day, we thought we would try going back to the Museumsquartier, and enjoyed a drink before the sun disappeared, while sketching, reading and resting our feet. Off to find dinner, we decided to go back to the Rathausplatz, where we’d been for lunch, to see what the film festival atmosphere was like at night.

The place was packed out completely, and such a different space than it had been during the day. They were screening films of classical concerts, and the soundtrack filled the air from beyond the bounds of the cinema. We somehow managed to find a table in amongst the chaos of it all, and another couple flocked to the two remaining seats we had free at it. We shared some platters of seafood and noodles with a few drinks, and started chatting to the older couple sharing our table, who were from Munich. A very friendly couple, they gave us some advice on where to go and what to do during some of our travels. Josh also made us try the potent Greek alcohol he’d enjoyed back home, which didn’t go down so well for all of us. It was then back to beer and wine, but we also knew we had to catch a 7.50am train the next morning so sensibility kicked in at some point and we started to make our way home. We tried to hire bikes to get back to the hostel through the great system they have in Europe where you can hire a bike from an automatic station and drop it off at another station near your destination. It turned out you could only hire one bike per credit card though, and as Andy was the only one with a chipped credit card the machine would take, we ended up back on the underground to the hostel, happy that we'd found some of the great Vienna.