Off to Vienna

Tuesday 29 April

We were booked on the 11:00 am train from Keleti Station for Vienna; the station was originally built in 1884 in the style of the grand European stations and is in the process of restoration. We had a fleeting glimpse in the entrance hall and the impression we received was that of the inside of a Greek Temple, it should be magnificent when the restoration is completed.

The train was a little tired when compared with the German and Dutch ones and the toilets are reminiscent of Victorian trains of old: “Toilets are not to be used while the train is in the station”. It was interesting to view the country regions of Hungary, the villages and towns are still run down and there were dozens of derelict and abandoned factories, probably failures from the Communist era. However the farms seemed to be flourishing and the hundreds of hectares of yellow flowing Canola made a lovely patchwork across the countryside.

Shortly before the Austrian border the Hungarian Border Guards came on the train, black uniforms, guns and riot batons suggested they were not to be trifled with, but they just walked through the carriage and didn’t ask for any papers. On the first station on the Austrian side there were two soldiers with binoculars around their necks and automatic rifles over their shoulders, they looked so young we wondered if they have started to shave, but the rifles gave them an air of authority.

We noticed as we crossed the border the big improvement in the standard of the houses and other buildings, there weren’t any old run down buildings visible as on the Hungarian side. The other sign that we were in Austria was the hundreds of wind generators scattered across the countryside. Austria, like Germany, generates a lot of its power with wind generators.

Arriving in Vienna it was a short walk to our hostel, Wombat’s Vienna, I’m not sure why it has this name but there are two in Vienna, and one in Berlin and Munich. We have a very nice modern room on the top floor overlooking a main street so it is a little noisy with the window open. It is a big improvement to the hostel in Budapest which was an old convent and I think they had retained the stone benches the nuns slept on, that how they felt. The last time we slept on beds with absolutely no give was in China. We are looking forward to a comfortable sleep tonight.