Vienna, Austria - Christmas Markets

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.

Rathaus

Pretty
Christmas
decor-
ations

Burg-
theater

Market
stalls

Woah!
Santa's
sleigh

Snowman
at the pub

Austria
Parlia-
ment

Back at
Rathaus

Pretty
lights

Bear

ATP World Tour Finals

Every year the tennis season draws to a close with the ATP World Tour Finals, where the top 8 ranked mens players in the world meet and battle it out over the course of a week to see who ends up as "World Tour Champion". Last year saw the World Tour Finals move to London's O2 stadium and it was such a success that the 2010 Finals were also held at the O2.

We booked tickets for the second semi-final, way back in the middle of the year, obviously not knowing who we would be seeing, but hoping that we would be lucky enough to see either Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal. As it turned out, Federer and Nadal both won all three of their respective pool matches. Nadal drew Andy Murray in the first semi-final and Federer drew world number 3 Novak Djokovic in the second semi-final. We were so delighted to be able to see Federer play live. We had previously seen Nadal live at the 2009 French Open, but we had never seen Federer play before.

Nadal beat Murray in a thrilling three-set match in the first semi-final, so the chances of yet another Nadal v Federer final spiced up our match even more. We got out to the O2 early and met up with Neena and Kristen, who also had tickets to the second semi-final. We had a drink in one of the bars at the O2 and then grabbed some thai for dinner.

Then we settled in to watch the match. The atmosphere was quite different to a grand slam event. Obviously it's indoors, which is very different, but there was a lot of music, special effects and lighting, which made it seem a little more like a heavyweight boxing fight than a tennis match. And it wasn't far off it in tennis terms - world number 2 v world number 3, two players in brilliant form and a surface that favoured attacking shots.

The final score suggests that Djokovic copped a hiding, but in truth, both men played brilliantly. Federer was just a step above the Serb. He was so clinical in everything he did that Djokovic had no chance. Federer won 6-1, 6-4 to progress to the final. We would have liked to see a longer match, but we were certainly treated to some sublime tennis and it was pretty special to watch the greatest tennis player in history at the top of his game. And it rounded off a fantastic year for sports events, after we also visited the home of golf, St Andrews and saw Tiger Woods in the British Open.