Tuesday in Vienna. Met by blue skies yet again and we had an exciting day planned. We had pre-booked tickets to see the Spanish horses morning exercise session from 10-12. How clever did we think we were when we arrived at the venue to see crowds lined up for miles to get tickets. We swanned in, only to find that most seats were already taken. We strode upstairs and finally snavelled a couple of seats after a little shove here and there. The anticipation grew as10o'clock neared. The doors to the arena flew open and in trotted 5 beautiful white horses. The atmosphere was electric. Well sadly, the anticipation was more exciting than the next hour. The horses trotted, walked, then trotted some more . There was lots of oohing and aahing from horse officianados, but honestly, it was so boring and the stench of the horse urine seemed to impregnate every follicle of my hair. John and I needed to escape - we lasted about 45 minutes, 35 minutes of which John spent studying his trusty map.
Once into the fresh air we were ready for the next adventure - the subway. We were heading over (or under) the river to the newer part of Vienna. John had read all about the stunning architecture that would greet us and a very different culture from the old city. On leaving the train we couldn't help but notice how few tourists were around - which was understandable after spending about 5 minutes walking around. It was concrete, concrete and more concrete with as much ambience as the Westfield car park. We did come across a very impressive Catholic Church (I know these words aren't usually associated) so check out the pic. Johns map showed a park and we thought that would be a nice break from the concrete. It went for miles and miles and was used mostly by the workers in the concrete buildings who needed to maintain their sanity somehow! Highlight was the small train that wove its way around the park. This gives you an indication of how bored we were;) Funniest organisation - picture an empty mini train- an unmanned ticket box the size of a small box and 2 men who magically appear from nowhere. One the driver and the other the watcher for the back. Not sure how much danger lurks sitting on a toy train, but we felt confident that for the 5 minute journey we would be safe:) Off we chugged, winding our way through the driest park I have ever seen. Some hairy moments when I thought Johno might have to put his foot to the ground to steady the ship:) but we arrived 2 stops down the track safely. 4 more men to organise a paper receipt then another to click a hole in it, starting to think I am in whacko land at this moment! Still no tourists in site, so we decided to head down to the river - surely there was some action to be had there! Well picture a Luna Park type scene with lots of cocktail bars and trampolines??? all whose signs were obliterated with Graffiti, and difficult to assess whether they were actually opened or closed? Highly impressed, we spotted a boat hire company, and commodore Farrell thought this would be a nice way to explore the river for an hour. Hard to decide which boat to get, but we decided to get the more powerful motor, the category under the speed boat. Off we sailed with John at the helm. Well thank God we got the more powerful motor as I truly believe anything less would not have had the power to leave the wharf! They were battery powered boats and possibly the slowest moving conveyance I have ever been in. As swans passed us, and sites took 10 minutes to actually pass by, we realised that 1 hour would not get us far. John thought best if I took over the captaincy and he took advantage of the slow pace, to have a nap in the back of the boat. (See pic) that man can sleep anywhere! Anyway, on our return we were charged an extra 2 euro for being 1 minute overtime - didn't have the energy to argue that if the boat had moved faster than a sea slug, we would have been back in time, so paid up and headed back to the Old City. For those thinking of visiting Venice, would definitely bypass Concrete Town!
A beautiful Spanish Tapas meal then an early night as tomorrow we have an early start for a proper boat trip up the Danube. X