Day 4 - 31 March 2019 Vienna

Daylight saving started last night so all watches etc put ahead one hour.  Even the Europeans are ahead of the Queenslanders.

Beautiful spring weather again today, the people in reception at the hotel were telling me that this time last year the temperature was around freezing through the day and in the minuses overnight.  

A little about the hotel.  I am staying at the Mercure Hotel Vienna First, which is part of the Accor Hotels chain.  It is a nice hotel with friendly staff and the location is excellent, very close to the middle of the old part of the city which is where most of the touristy attractions are located.  Also close to a decent selection of restaurants and bars, which is also attractive to the hungry, thirsty tourist.  The hotel also has a bar/restaurant but typical of hotel bars this lacks a little character but is fine in an emergency.  

Visited some of the major public buildings today.  These tend to be previous Habsburg palaces that are now used as public buildings, universities, museums and so on.  The Habsburgs ran this place from 1273 until 1918, so they had a bit of time to build some palaces.  One of the Habsburgs had the bright idea that they didn't need the city walls any more so he had them torn down and replaced with a ring road.  Most of the most impressive of the palaces and public buildings are on the ring road which makes them easy to find.  This should also make it easier not to get lost but this hasn't really been the case.  Another bright idea a Habsburg had was to initiate the round of events that led to the start of TGW, more on that to come, much more.  Oh good I hear you all say.

I should at this stage remind previous readers and warn new readers that there may be a little bit of history thrown into the blog, but only stuff that I think is really really interesting.

Being Sunday a lot of the cafes and restaurants were closed so choice was a bit limited for dinner.  But I persisted and found an Irish bar called Pickwicks that served a good burger and even better pints (1/2 litre) of Guinness.  A 1/2 litre of Guiness was E5.20.  I also found the grumpiest host that I have come across so far.

I have been researching a boat trip on the Danube for Monday.

A walk in the Vienna woods

I thought that I might take up dancing lessons with the good Herr Professor

Another Habsburg palace

Step Count Today: 11,279 

Observations: Shops and lots of other businesses closed on Sunday.