To close out the trip, I obviously had to go back to Vienna. Since my flight was leaving first thing Tuesday morning, I wanted to be back in Vienna by Monday just in case something went awry (it didn't, but better to be safe than sorry).
I had booked a bus for 16 EUR on a Student Agency bus which would take me from Prague's Florenc bus terminal to Vienna's Stadion bus terminal with a 30 minute stop in Brno.
Prague Florenc terminal
The bus station was probably a 20-25 minute walk from my hotel, though I got turned around a couple of times since I was relying on wifi for my Google Maps to work. The terminal was busy and pretty bare bones, but had a couple fast food options and a little convenience store. Definitely a far cry from the bus terminals I've seen in Texas, which generally resemble run down homeless shelters more so than anything associated with transportation.
Boarding for my bus was a bit of a cluster, to be honest. They had 3 buses departing to Vienna at the same time and there was no way to know which one you were on without checking with the woman with the list standing at each bus. Naturally I was on the 3rd and final bus and 3rd woman, so it took about 20 minutes of waiting in line, being told I wasn't on their bus, moving to the next one, and then repeat. Once on the bus, it was rather comfortable. Seats are assigned, and I had an empty seat next to me until Brno. They serve free hot beverages (coffee, hot chocolate, latte, etc) and have very reasonable prices on cold drinks like beer and juice, under 1 EUR each (menu below). They advertise WiFi while in Czech Republic, and while it does exist I found it to be completely unusable due to the slow speeds.
We arrived at Vienna's Stadion bus terminal right on time and I followed the mass of people to the public transit stop that is right next door, paid my 2.20 EUR and went to my hotel for the night.
Hotel Prinz Eugen
The final Expedia special had me here, a older property but still pretty comfortable and with a better view than my last couple places. I dropped my bag upstairs and went off for dinner, cognizant that I hadn't eaten since breakfast.
Dinner at 1516 Brewing
The Colorado couple I met in Budapest had gone here and recommended it, though to be fair it was already on my list of places to check out. I sat upstairs in the non-smoking section and since they were so busy they sat me at a very large square table that had two ladies on the other corner. None of us minded sharing the big table, and it seemed preferable to waiting for a small table to come available. I ordered the schnitzel and their Christmas bock. The food was delicious and the beer was tasty, though unfortunately the service was terrible. Outside of taking my order and depositing food/beer on the table, the server didn't come back a single time. I was literally sitting with a basically licked clean plate and dry pint glass and complete crickets from the staff. I finally flagged one down to get the check, thankfully I had correct change and just left. Very disappointing. I'd have stayed and had dessert and another beer if the service had been a single notch above non-existent.
After dinner I wondered over to a nearby Christmas market to buy something but since it was drizzling out, figured I'd come back to buy things when I had my backpack tomorrow.
Back at my hotel I had considerable difficulty falling asleep. I thought I'd watch one of the two English TV channels, but the remote didn't work, so I fired up some Netflix until I finally fell asleep.
Monday
I awoke to a pretty dreary looking day. Thankfully when the weather forecast says 90% chance of rain all day, they mean "it's cloudy and drizzly but there isn't really rain". In Texas when it says that level rain, it means "rain so hard you can't see the car next to you" though of course it may not rain two miles away. But I digress... I went down for breakfast, which was pretty good, and read a couple of trip reports while I ate.
The plan for today was to go visit the Hofburg Palace, re-visit the Christmas Market to acquire something, grab some lunch, and head to the airport tonight as I planned to take sleeping in airports abroad (I only had once at IAH before)
The Vienna Hofburg includes the imperial residences, the very nice plate collection, and the Sisi Museum, dedicated to one of the more well known members of the imperial family. I enjoyed the residences the most and seeing all of the insanely intricate place settings and porcelean work they had made. I didn't care too much for the Sisi Museum, to be honest. Here are some photos from the parts where photography is allowed.
From there I walked to the same market from last night and picked something up that will be included in my mother's Christmas gift in a couple weeks. I then started to walk back toward the hotel with a pit stop for a beer at Salm Brau and then walked around the adjacent Belvedere Palace grounds. I had planned to go to Weiden Brau for a late lunch/early dinner and discovered they have half price beer from 2-4 pm, so I got there a bit before 4 and tried a couple of the beers. For dinner I was constrained by my remaining Euros, but I had just enough to get the dinner I wanted, so it was all good! Not sure their fascination with topping toasted bread kind of like pizza, but mine was bread, with tomatoes, ham, and mozzarella cheese and baked. It was incredibly filling and surprisingly tasty. I went to grab my bag from the storage room at the hotel and then went to the airport.
So sleeping in the airport... while not the greatest option, it seemed decent to do here. My 6:55 am flight would have required waking up super early and I don't sleep well when I know I have to be up that early, so I figured why waste money on a hotel when I won't sleep well for the few hours. Especially since Vienna has comfortable areas to nap, free wifi, etc.
Back to VIE
I took the same train for 4.40 EUR which was completely painless. I obtained my boarding passes and went through the BP check to get to the lounge. The BP gates wouldn't let me through due to my flight being the next day, so the agent manually opened the gates. I went up to the Jet Lounge on the 2nd floor above the shopping area. Food and drink made my Netflixing more relaxing for a while, and when they were closing I went to the F gates area of the airport - the best area to sleep according to Sleeping in Airports. The lounge had some tasty artery clogging pasta and Cream of Pumpkin soup.
The security guys likely thought I was crazy as they asked "You know your flight is tomorrow morning, right?" I said yes and they couldn't have cared less and let me through without issue. I found a big comfortable lounger to sleep on and since it was so bright had to use my scarf as an eye shade. I set an alarm on my phone and went to sleep. When I woke up, to get back to my gates I had to go back landside and go back through security which was no issue and went to get on my flight to Zurich.
Bed time:
