The Schönbrunn & the Prater

Photos are here.

I bought a 12-hour subway ticket, went to the post office after breakfast, mailed a mess of souvenirs to myself back home (phew! lighter backpack!), and then deposited my big backpack in a locker at the station. I still had a whole lot of time to kill before my 8:40 night train to Venice.

My last day in Vienna was spent at Schloss Schönbrunn (Schönbrunn Palace... I DID walk up to the Gloriette... and listened to Toshack Highway and it was PERFECT), where for a whole heck of a lot of years, the Hapsburgs reigned over the whole of the Austro-Hungarian/Holy Roman Empire. To say the place is impressive and sprawling doesn't begin to do it justice. You'll just have to check out the photos.

Still, many hours to kill.

I went back to the centrum, I wandered and wandered. Ended up eating fish and chips at an Australian bar. How... I don't know... ambienceless? Yeah, pretty much. There was a British guy there watching football (soccer) and getting genuinely worked up when no one else in the place seemed to give a tiny rat's ass. It was entertaining. I then saw the most convincing one man band in the street outside the restaurant. That was entertaining as well.

Still having too many hours to kill before the train, I went to the Prater to ride the ginormous Ferris wheel. For those of you that know the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, I'd have to say that this place is roughly Vienna's equivalent, but it seems to be an attractive spot for the really, really slick (I'm assuming) bridge and tunnel crowd of Vienna. Dudes with fake tans, shiny hair, and rhinestones on their shirts. You get the picture. Someone we'd picture as a German listening to hardcore techno and grinding on whatever is around.

There were many rides there that made me sick just looking at them. Exactly what about being flung tens of feet in the air while rotating around a bar does NOT want to make some people puke? I avoided those rides. And not just because mere moments after boarding the Ferris wheel I remembered that they make me a little nervous. Right.

I strolled the park grounds and left for the station at around 7 and got there with a little more than an hour to spare. (And as a little explanation... In German, Vienna is Wien, pronounced veen... so there's why that photo is so funny to me. All evidence is pointing to me loving puns in European languages.)

I found a bottle of Zweigelt in the glorified 7-11 equivalent at the station and boarded the train with the bottle of wine and my Leatherman corkscrew. Woo wee.