Of all the places we were planning to visit on this trip, Vienna was the only one new to me. I hadn't really heard much about what to see and do in Vienna and - needless to say - had not done a lot of research either. We planned to take things as we went along. The reason we were even going to Vienna were two fold - one, I had been unable to find a good flight deal to either Prague or Salzburg (or anywhere in Croatia lol) from London Gatwick that conveniently matched up with our itinerary in and out of Gatwick as well; and two, I was hoping to meet a friend in Vienna.

As I have probably mentioned sometime, I am a big tennis fan and I volunteer at the Miami Open tennis tournament in March - I have been doing this for the last few years. The deal is that I have to pay for my own visit to Miami and the stay there; on the other hand, I get to watch tennis to my stomach's content for as long as I can, up to the semi finals of the tournament. I prided myself as being the volunteer who travelled the farthest (from Orlando) to volunteer... until I met someone from Jacksonville ... and then someone from Connecticut. But a few months ago, i.e., at this year's tournament in March, I met this lady who put us all to shame. She comes all the way from Vienna to spend a couple of weeks taking in tennis, then vacations some more in South Florida before flying back to Vienna. I had casually mentioned her that I might even come see her in Vienna sometime. Truth be told, I didn't think it was going to happen within six months!! We planned to meet up in the evening today because we would not really have much time tomorrow or when we were going to be in Vienna just before our flights back to the USA.

That said, for today, we did have another key item of business we wished to complete before dark. I am not that good at navigating in the night in a new place, so we really wanted to be able to check in earlier in the day if possible, so we didn't need to hunt around at night for our reserved hotel digs for the night. You might ask why we had taken two different hotel reservations for two night - well, there is a reason.

I had originally made two separate reservations at this hotel (the Star Plus Inn aka Leonardo Inn) for two consecutive nights. But Agoda informed us that the hotel might nullify our reservation if we don't check in by 9 pm. They advised us to communicate with the hotel directly to confirm that they would allow us to check in really late like at midnight or later. I had sent my emails etc; however, the hotel had never bothered to respond, so I was in a dilemma. If the hotel didn't let us check in that night, I didn't want to come back and stay there the next day. So, I scouted around and got a good deal at this other hotel that was located near Westbahnhof.

For the morning, our Viennese friend told us that since we were by the Hauptbahnhof, we should check out the Belvedere castle (I had only heard of the Schonbrunn castle, but not this one). As I love geographical features, the Danube was something I wanted to visit as well, though the maps were deceptive in how far it was from where we were staying.

As a matter of fact, it was only later that evening, when talking to our friend that I realized that what local folks refer to as central Vienna was neither the main train station (the Hauptbahnhof) nor the second most important train station of the city (the Westbahnhof), but it was the Stephansplatz, which is where the St. Stephen's Cathedral sits. [Confession: while geography was one of my favourite subjects in school and I loved remembering where all the rivers, mountains and deserts were located, I didn't really pay as much attention to history, and all the different Empires and countries in Europe and their evolution was just one big blob circulating in my brain lol]

Because of the late night - we got to our hotel room at only about one am and finally turned in a half hour or so later - we woke up very leisurely at about 9:30 am. We quickly got ready and checked out because we didn't think we would have time to return to the hotel by noon to refresh ourselves (even if we needed to) - the hotel needed us to check out by noon anyway. Leaving the luggage in the hotel's luggage storage area, we set out for the Belvedere castle.

Within about fifteen minutes, crossing the Hauptbahnhof where the trains plied on a level that was higher than the street level and walking along the footpath, we were at the castle. It was quite impressive - we didn't plan to enter the castle itself but were more interested in the scenery around it. There was a nice huge pond in front, surrounded by flowers all around and there were statues at the castle entrance (I need to research on the significance of all of the statues and the stories they tell). We got a few photos and a few selfies.

By this time, though I was still not too hungry, DW was and so we decided to stop by a cafe inside the castle premises. I walked on around and came across a few rooms with some very artistic and absolutely stunning architecture inside. More photos ensued.

Now that we had just over a day left in Vienna (our train towards Salzburg was to leave tomorrow afternoon), we purchased a day's transportation pass at the local metro station. Also at the station, we purchased pizza and some desserts and decided to go to the Hauptbahnhof and consume them there as I watched some train action. The next plan was to travel to the banks of the Danube then return to Stephanzplatz where we would rendezvous with our friend.

I managed to figure out that there was a train that would take us to the banks of the Danube to the station called Praterkai where we could stop for some time then take a train back. Within about half an hour, we were at Praterkai, where we found that there was a nice pedestrian/bike trail that paralleled the river. So, we started walking along the path occasionally looking back to see if there were any trains crossing the river in either direction. As we walked along, far ahead of us, we could see what looked like metro suburban trains crossing the bridge in both directions. So, we decided to head over to that station (Donaumarina) to catch our transportation back into town.

And this is where I made a foolish decision. I decided to go and try to find our hotel before meeting our friend. It was nearly four pm now. We had informed her that we would meet at about six pm. I believed we could go Donaumarina-Stephanzplatz-Westbahnhof quickly, find the hotel, check in and maybe freshen up a bit, then come back to Stephanzplatz by six pm. Unfortunately, my phone battery was on its last dregs and wife's wasn't doing much better either.

We got to Westbahnhof in time, right around five pm. Now, as anyone who has travelled on underground metros knows, once you step out of the underground, it is like you are in an entirely new world. And if the metro station is huge, like the Westbahnhof was, there are a plethora of exits which would each dump you on a different street oriented differently.

Having studied the map patiently, I knew exactly where our hotel was supposed to be with respect to the station, if I were oriented properly, which I was absolutely not. My wife's iPhone was giving random directional indicators each time we made a change in our direction as we walked around trying to find the hotel. I even went to a couple of other hotels to ask them if they could point us in the right direction. The folks I spoke to were vague. Bottom line: we were unable to locate our hotel and had to turn tail and head right back to Stephanzplatz.

Fortunately, we reached the place right about six pm and were able to locate our friend, though after a little bit of initial confusion. We spent some time chatting with her over some drinks - I got tea :-). Then, we walked around the area and she showed us the various important buildings.

After parting from her, we headed back to our hotel from this morning to collect our luggage, recharge our now dead phones and set out to the new hotel once again. This time we were successful in locating the place on our first attempt. My phone compass accurately displayed the north. Thus oriented, it was a piece of cake to find the hotel and we finally checked in at about ten pm.

Because we were both tired, I asked DW if she minded accompanying me to the Shloss Schonbrunn (the Schonbrunn palace) - though it would likely be closed, at least we would know how to get there, because our plan was to check it out tomorrow before heading out for Salzburg. The palace was conveniently located one tram ride away from the Westbahnhof.

We reached there in about half an hour, walked around and got some photos (of course). As we learned later, they don't have the lights on during the night anymore., so the photos were not as good as I was hoping them to have been. By the time we returned, it was late at night and we turned in without much ado.