Eating our way through Vienna

21st December 2006 (venice-> vienna)

up at 7am for breakie and we say goodbye to venice and italy today...

strange to think that we've spent the last week in italy, seems like it's been only a day

on the bus at 8 and off.

first stop was just over the border of austria, for some austrian food... the best we'll get we were told... and here we enter the land of pork!

it had a perfect setting it was a little road house (Agrill) and behind it was this mountain covered with snowcapped trees...and it had some fantastic food, i think most people went and had pork with crackling and cheesey potato... and it was fantastic... mmmm yum

definietly better than breakfast.

back on the bus for 2.5 hrs, and stoped at hansel and grettle (the name of the a grill) which sold some rather strange items...funny one being spermies.... shot's in the shape of sperm...played some games on the bus, another get to know you better game, got to interview someone and then get up and speak about them for 5 mins...

arrived in vienna late afternoon and checked into our classy hotel...

it was called the pyramid, and it was classy... it had it's own heated pool, and gym, and it was just a really nice hotel...

it snowed for the first time today as we were on the bus...being a bus full of aussies, who really don't have much to do with snow... we were all rather excited...

dave's at the front going...it's just snow guys! nothing to get excited about!

hahahahabut it made it a scenic drive, going past all these trees covered in snow...looking good for being a white christmas!

some people (about 10 ) went off to the motzart concert, and the rest of us did some much needed washing before heading out to the local shopping complex, that went on for miles...ok think of the plaza, then times it by 3... then stretch it and make it bend back on itself, and you get this extremly hard to navigate shopping complex that winds all over the place... but it was good, pretty busy being thursday night and a few days before christmas...

somehow we managed to navigate our way around and find the food complex, where we had austrian snitzel! before heading off shopping...it was a nice relaxing night...

found out the internet access was free at the hotel, and caught up on some emails... can beat free net access...

22nd December 2006 (free day in vienna)

Got a wake up call at 8am... and headed off to find breakie.... there were so many breaky areas that we walked through trying to find ours... and you could tell they were all not for us... too much to choose from...

hahaha

finally we found it, and it wasn't all that bad...definitely lower class than the ones we'd walked past!

dave was wandering around asking if anyone would be interested in heading over the boarder into solvakia later that night, so we jumped atthe chance of getting another stamp in out passports and said yes straight away...

boarded the bus and set off, dropped off in the center of town and dave lead us on yet another speed walking tour of the city, past the parliment buildings, and the palace which was nice, before sending us on our way to have a free day.

decided to ditch the boys and have a relaxing day doing whatever we ended up doing...needless to say lots of time was spent looking at shoes... they're rather cheap, and good quality.

wandered the streets a bit, before deciding to try the famous sochatore (it's a rich chocolate cake)it's meant to be an expensive cake, but we found this cafe that had it that was rather cheap, so we shared a few pieces and had hotchocolates with rummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm yum!

cake was a bit dry, it was like a chocoalte sponge with layers of jam..they had a scary toilet which we used... not a fan of paying to use the toilet (so you go when you can, not when you have to!)

from there came across the statue of maria (our meeting place for the bus in the afternoon...) had a quick look around at the markets before heading in the direction of the official and famous vienna christmas markets,

and weren't disappointed.

there were people and stalls everywhere, so much to look at... we quickly lost each other... not on purpose, and you'd randomly find eah other before losing them again.

decided to be brave and try some traditional sausage... we all ended up getting these hot dog things with a hotdog with cheese inside the sausage..which i might add took us ages to determine what it was oozing from the sausage......

after looking around some more, decided to get our christmas mug, with hot mulled wine in it... we wanted egg nog, but no one understood us! lol so we got wine instead... it was so sickly sweet.... we found a pot plant and poured half out! :O)

ran into a whole heap of other people from the tour, still extremly weird running into people you know all over the place.

went shopping again, and just wandered around until it was time to meet the bus...so didn't really do anything cultural except munch our way through the traditional austrian food!

got back to the hotel about 5, and were told to meet at 5:45 if we were heading to bratislavia. so headed off to get ready.

caught 2 shuttles over slovakia, took about 1 hour to get there, where we were dropped off, and lead by brent (as dave hadn't been there before either) with his lonley planet guide book to a restraunt at the top of the hill, and next to the castle...

which took one look at our group of 12 and said no cant feed you...hahahaha

so looked around at the castle... and marvled at the city lights, before heading back into the main city...

decided on a little restraunt for dinner, and sampled the local food... it was really cheap there... beers were $0.5, for 1/2 L, and our main meals were $2

from there we just wandered the streets aimlessly looking around...it'd be interesting to come back and see it all in day light

back into Austria around 12... it's not often you can say hey i'll just go to another country for dinner!

so in all we got to spend about 4 hrs in bratislavia, and i think most people had a great time.