January 4th, 2008
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Because we moved a lot and because the city is big we bought a 8 day ticket, that means 4 days traveling for 2 persons and it was great that it was valid for 24 hours. We could use it on all types of public transportations. We never encountered ticket collectors. However I advise travelers to buy tickets.
We visited all squares from Vienna, Including Stephan's Platz and St. Stephan's Dom (cathedral), where we went up to one of the towers. From up there you could see a nice city panorama, but it was damn cold. An Asian guy insisted on taking us a photo, after that to another couple who was next to us... in fact he was taking pictures for everybody. The roof of St.Stephan's Dom was made up of 250000 colorful tiles (green, white, red and yellow).
Mozart's house... a little bit disappointing... cause after seeing the movie (Amadeus), your curiosity takes you to a little alley, not too crowded where Mozart lived in Vienna for few years. When I say disappointing I mean, I expected something else... not much furniture left from that time... a lot of music and many suppositions like "We suppose that here was the dinning room... or the studying room...". It was a guided tour.
Wiener Prater, the amusement park, not interesting to visit during winter, cause all the amusements are open in summer time. But you get a great view of the town in Riesenrad, a red giant wheel, very symbolic, as we saw it on many things, even as a symbol for the European Football Championship (Austria-Switzerland 2008). When we got there it was already dark outside. People were queued to ride the giant wheel so we didn't.
Donau (Danube) - a river which passes to our country too. We were amazed to see it frozen, ready for people to skate on it, to play hokey on it. It's a strange feeling to walk on ice, step by step until you learn to trust and run on it. It was even stranger for my girlfirend who had the chance, in a sumer time, to go on a boat ride on the Danube and now she walked on it.
Schönbrunn - all yellow, and not because it's the color of gold, but because they spent so much money on the building that it was all they could afford to paint the whole palace. It was nice because that night it snowed, so all was white. We didn't have the time to visit all the rooms from the palace, but we spend 4 hours in the Zoo. They had a nice maze, too bad it was closed. But back to the Zoo, a great variety of animals, from the Japanese goat to elephants, from panda to giraffes, from monkeys to sharks, from butterflies to jelly fish, crocodiles, bats and many more. I was too absorbed to see some insects that I went too close to the glass and I hit my head twice. I had to fight with the bats to rescue my girlfriend's glove, because she had lost it when we entered to see the bats inside a dark room. And I saved the day.
We spent 5 nights in Vienna. We had a great time. Wish I didn't return home.
To go back, cause we had to do that too, all we could find for that time of the year was Vienna to Budapest and Budapest to Arad, everything else had already been booked. On the way back home, we tried to clean the bag a little bit, because we had too many papers with us and by mistake, of course, my girlfriend severed the good reservation paper. The reservation was just 6 euros for both, that wouldn't have been a problem if we hadn't spent all our money on the last minute shopping. A little bit of stress at the end of our vacation was not expected. The Hungarian ticket collector was nice and understanding but he warned us regarding the Romanian one... meaning that he may expect something from us (like bribery, as he made a sign towards the pocket in order to explain himself), but he didn't told us something new. That didn't happened, to our surprise. Our tickets were for Arad and not Timisoara, and the Romanian ticket collector was 'nice' of him to suggest that he agrees even if just one of us will pay for one ticket. No receipt to be expected in this case, of course so we didn't agree, and we took another train to arrive finally to Timisoara.
Next stop is Amsterdam (Nederland), when... I don't know the precise date, but I'm sure it will be this years spring.
Because we moved a lot and because the city is big we bought a 8 day ticket, that means 4 days traveling for 2 persons and it was great that it was valid for 24 hours. We could use it on all types of public transportations. We never encountered ticket collectors. However I advise travelers to buy tickets.
We visited all squares from Vienna, Including Stephan's Platz and St. Stephan's Dom (cathedral), where we went up to one of the towers. From up there you could see a nice city panorama, but it was damn cold. An Asian guy insisted on taking us a photo, after that to another couple who was next to us... in fact he was taking pictures for everybody. The roof of St.Stephan's Dom was made up of 250000 colorful tiles (green, white, red and yellow).
Mozart's house... a little bit disappointing... cause after seeing the movie (Amadeus), your curiosity takes you to a little alley, not too crowded where Mozart lived in Vienna for few years. When I say disappointing I mean, I expected something else... not much furniture left from that time... a lot of music and many suppositions like "We suppose that here was the dinning room... or the studying room...". It was a guided tour.
Wiener Prater, the amusement park, not interesting to visit during winter, cause all the amusements are open in summer time. But you get a great view of the town in Riesenrad, a red giant wheel, very symbolic, as we saw it on many things, even as a symbol for the European Football Championship (Austria-Switzerland 2008). When we got there it was already dark outside. People were queued to ride the giant wheel so we didn't.
Donau (Danube) - a river which passes to our country too. We were amazed to see it frozen, ready for people to skate on it, to play hokey on it. It's a strange feeling to walk on ice, step by step until you learn to trust and run on it. It was even stranger for my girlfirend who had the chance, in a sumer time, to go on a boat ride on the Danube and now she walked on it.
Schönbrunn - all yellow, and not because it's the color of gold, but because they spent so much money on the building that it was all they could afford to paint the whole palace. It was nice because that night it snowed, so all was white. We didn't have the time to visit all the rooms from the palace, but we spend 4 hours in the Zoo. They had a nice maze, too bad it was closed. But back to the Zoo, a great variety of animals, from the Japanese goat to elephants, from panda to giraffes, from monkeys to sharks, from butterflies to jelly fish, crocodiles, bats and many more. I was too absorbed to see some insects that I went too close to the glass and I hit my head twice. I had to fight with the bats to rescue my girlfriend's glove, because she had lost it when we entered to see the bats inside a dark room. And I saved the day.
We spent 5 nights in Vienna. We had a great time. Wish I didn't return home.
To go back, cause we had to do that too, all we could find for that time of the year was Vienna to Budapest and Budapest to Arad, everything else had already been booked. On the way back home, we tried to clean the bag a little bit, because we had too many papers with us and by mistake, of course, my girlfriend severed the good reservation paper. The reservation was just 6 euros for both, that wouldn't have been a problem if we hadn't spent all our money on the last minute shopping. A little bit of stress at the end of our vacation was not expected. The Hungarian ticket collector was nice and understanding but he warned us regarding the Romanian one... meaning that he may expect something from us (like bribery, as he made a sign towards the pocket in order to explain himself), but he didn't told us something new. That didn't happened, to our surprise. Our tickets were for Arad and not Timisoara, and the Romanian ticket collector was 'nice' of him to suggest that he agrees even if just one of us will pay for one ticket. No receipt to be expected in this case, of course so we didn't agree, and we took another train to arrive finally to Timisoara.
Next stop is Amsterdam (Nederland), when... I don't know the precise date, but I'm sure it will be this years spring.
January 21st, 2008 at 21:51:41
Next time, make your girlfriend wear the gloves, so she doesn't severe the reservations :)