The travels of Tim and Megan: Vienna, Austria

Christmas Eve

As has become the norm for our travels, we rose at a ridiculous hour on the morning of Christmas Eve and caught a cab out to Heathrow. Thankfully the snow and ice that had caused chaos at the airports earlier in the week had dispersed and we were able to fly as planned! We arrived at Heathrow around 3.45am and, contrary to the doom and gloom news reports, it was very quiet. Our flight to Vienna left on time at 6.45am and we touched down in the Austrian capital around 10.00am.

We had decided to split our Christmas holiday between Vienna and the Slovakian capital, Bratislava, which is just 60km to the east. We wanted to see the Christmas markets in Vienna, which only run until 24 December, so we spent the day in Vienna before heading to Bratislava for two days.

Unfortunately, the transport and train stations in Vienna caused some delay and amusement. We got the "CAT" airport train into Wien Mitte (train station) without any problems, but it went downhill from there. We had hoped to store our luggage at Wien Mitte for the day, but the station was under renovation and did not have any luggage storage facilities. So we headed for another major train station, Sudbahnhof, where we had to go anyway to buy our train tickets to Bratislava. After struggling to figure out the unnecessarily complex underground system (we needed an "S" line, not a "U" line - of course!) we made our way to Sudbahnhof. But, it turns out that Sudnbahnhof is about the size of Texas and we had to walk a few hundred metres from our exit up the road to the main part of the station. When we eventually figured that out (there was no helpful signage), we discovered that they don't have luggage storage facilities either and that we actually need Westbahnhof, which does have luggage storage facilities.

So we bought our train tickets to Bratislava (which were crazily cheap) and set off in search of the number 18 tram, which would take us to Westbahnhof. That was a mission in itself. Another walk of a few hundred metres and we (somehow) found the correct tram line. But without any logical sort of signage, we hopped on the number 18 tram going in the wrong direction. Luckily, we worked that out and hopped off after one stop and crossed the tracks to wait for the number 18 tram going in the right direction. Eventually we arrived at Westbahnhof and found the luggage storage area. We locked up our suitcases and (finally) made our way to the Christmas markets!

Vienna is renowned for having amazing Christmas markets and they actually have several sites across the city packed with market stalls. We headed to the Rathaus Christmas markets first and they were awesome. There were some really amazing Christmas decorations, toys and crafts for sale, not to mention the amazing selection of food and drinks.

We got some hot chocolate (in specially decorated Christmas market mugs!) to warm us up a little as we walked around admiring the treasures for sale. We also got some delicious hot cinnamon bread things that we had had in Prague a few Christmases earlier.

After an hour or so, we decided to move on to the Spittelberg Christmas markets, just a few blocks away. Unfortunately, the Spittelberg markets had closed the day before, so there not much happening at all in that area. But we found a pub where we had a light lunch and then we returned to the Rathaus markets.

By late afternoon it was starting to get dark and the Christmas lights at the market were starting to take effect. They looked brilliant. It was actually fairly mild temperature wise in Vienna - about 7 or 8 degrees, although it was drizzling on and off for most of the day. On our return to the Rathaus markets, we had a few of our Christmas favourites - some mulled wine and a delicious hot dog. Megs bought a little toy Christmas train (very cool) and then we rounded off our day at the markets with some hot roasted nuts - yum.

We then did a circuit of Vienna's train stations again - Westbahnhof to collect our luggage and then Sudbahnhof to catch our train to Bratislava. We caught the 6.20pm train, which arrived in Bratislava at about 7.30pm - a very quick trip on a rather empty train.