I got up at 3.45am, as did my uncle, who then drove me to the airport at Tegel. There's problems with trying to get the new airport functional, apparently.
My flight with Air Berlin was fine, but the departure system leaves a bit to be desired. But since it's all temporary (in anticipation of the new airport), nothing will probably be done.
There was a man with my name on a sign waiting for me when I came out of the baggage claim in Vienna and he took me to a car and driver who then drove me to the hotel. I was expecting there to have been others being taken to the hotel, but no. I arrived at the hotel around 9am but they had a room ready for me, which was nice. I settled in a bit, was disappointed to find there were no tea and coffee making facilities, and planned my day until 6.30pm when I'd be meeting the tour guide and rest of the group.
I headed off to Karlsplatz by subway (it's 5 stops and isn't quite the middle of town - so the hotel is a small way out). The subway station at Karlsplatz was quite beautiful:
As was St Charles church (which wanted 5 Euro admission - so I didn't go in):
I headed to Schwarzenberg Place, coming past a beautiful wrought iron gate and some lovely old buildings:
The place has a Russian monument to soldiers, dating from the Russian occupation after WWII:
I headed to the Belvedere to see the buildings and the Klimt exhibition, passing this lovely facade:
I think I managed to get to the Belvedere from the back door, but that just meant I got to see it get more and more gorgeous:
The Belvedere consists of an upper and lower Belvedere and lots of fountains, gardens and statues:
Once again, no photos allowed inside, though I did manage to sneak a couple:
The exhibition cost 11 Euro for just the one location (upper Belvedere for Klimt), which is all I wanted to do. I think it was worthwhile because there was other really nice art too - and now I can say I've seen the original of "The Kiss"! The art displayed was mostly modern art (around 1900) but there was also some as early as the middle ages.
I took my time going through the exhibition and stopped for lunch at the cafe there. I had vaguely thought to go elsewhere for lunch but it was getting quite late (3pm) so I thought I'd better eat now otherwise I wouldn't want my included dinner tonight! I just had the soup (not even bread with it!) for 4.50 Euro, which I thought was a bit much. It was extremely oversalted too. After my soup, I continued on with the last little bit of the gallery and then headed off in search of a coffee, going out through the front:
Next, I passed this interesting statue at the Radiokultur Haus:
and these couple of pretty facades:
I decided to stop for a coffee before going back to the hotel for the 6.30pm meeting, since there was no coffee to be had in my room anyway. The name of this place amused me, so I went in to Almost Famous:
I happened past St Paul's church, so peeked inside on my way:
And took a last couple of photos for the day near and then of the Technical University:
I got back to the hotel in time to have a bit of a rest for an hour or so, since I was quite tired after the short night. I couldn't sleep, of course, so I just captioned my photos and worked on my blog for a little while until it was time to go downstairs to meet the tour.
The guide, Tamas, seems quite nice. He's an older Hungarian gentleman. Our tour is to consist of 12 passengers, plus Tamas and the driver Pavel (from Poland). Only 6 of us were there, however, since the other 6 were Americans and their flight had been cancelled (they didn't manage to join us until the morning we left for Budapest!!). Those already there were a husband and wife (Frank and Bridget) and another solo traveller (Thomas) all from Ireland; CT and Sau Wan from Singapore (near where I used to live, no less!) and me as the only Aussie again. Our tour meeting didn't go on for too long, since there were only 6 of us.
We headed off to dinner around 7.30pm at this place in Vienna offering local cuisine. It looked quite nice and traditional, but the food was terrible. I asked for the schnitzel and was given a chicken schnitzel (instead of the traditional veal) and potatoes. No vegies or sauce - it was so dry!
Anyway, we also met the driver, who doesn't seem to speak English, and got to know each other a little bit.
Got back to the hotel around 10 and did a bit more work on my blog and photos before falling into bed.
