26.9.24
A 7am alarm, packed, off for our last amazing Ibis breakfast, then a Bolt that was also an Uber and off we went to the main bus station. At least we knew we had a booking and won’t feel daft and lost.
Our Flixbus was bang on time. No check on the Bratislava/Austria border and at 10.30 we pulled into a very ropey bus station, loads of litter and fag ends.
So.. We were heading to the Hampton by Hilton Hotel, by Bolt.
The driver asked us for the address and off we went for ages, the fare was 22 euros, despite being 17 when I booked it. He had cancelled our booking and done it by the meter. Very naughty. Anyway, it looked great until the nice receptionist said we were at the wrong hotel.
An Uber to the west of the city to the other hotel was another 20 euro. So annoying. Our hotel has only been open for 3 weeks, so Google didn’t find the correct address.
We dropped our bags and set off to explore.
We got a U4 underground to Karlsplatz, then walked and saw so many incredible buildings.
We had coffee in Volksgarden. While I was in the loo Carol paid the bill and the waitress was really rude because she didn’t give her a tip.
It was 2 coffees, mine was luke warm. What a cheek!
More incredible buildings. We had a useless map so used google to help us around.
My biggest gripe is the lack of signage. We had no idea what we were looking at but it was pretty special.
We decided to just jump on a random tram and see where we ended up. Tram 46 took us away from the splendour and to quite grotty suburbs.
Tram 48 took us back to more or less where we started.
We got a number 1 tram to Hundertwasser to see the painted apartments there.
Loved it and the little souvenir area which showed all his bright art work.
It made me want to go home and restyle the whole house with bright colours. Johns been painting our lounge using white while I’ve been away. He won’t mind I’m sure.
There were a lot of grotty looking restaurants nearby, none of them very appealing, especially the one that stank of manky old oil.
We settled on Le Pearl. Nothing French about it, I had chicken Shawarma and Carol had green beans, tomato and rice.
It was good and had a very attractive waiter.
Finding our way back to U4 underground was very tricky. Eventually we came across U3, one stop and we could change to U4.
We marched off without looking for any signs, up two very steep escalators and onto the street. A lady explained that we need to go back down, to the end of the platform, up, then down.
Does anyone fancy anyone want a support worker job?
U4 for a few stops. Then exit. Next.. search for our hotel. I insisted it was one way. Carol insisted it was the other way, but we hadn’t passed Spar.
Our journey on google said 26 minutes. It was well over an hour and a half by now.
There are 2 exits, we had come out the other one.
Over the road, along for a few metres and there was our hotel, complete with all it’s opening event balloons.
Everything in our room was beautiful, the bed was comfy and lovely pillows.
Carol loved pressing the switches to open and close the blinds. I always pressed the buttons thinking it was for the lights..Night night Vienna.