Travelling to the heart of Austria on a Viennese City Break

If you've read my blog just once, you'll probably have read somewhere or seen something about my huge love for panda bears. After hearing the breaking news that a pair of Pandas in an Austrian Zoo had given birth to not one but two baby pandas, the planning of a visit to the city of Vienna was on the cards.

I contacted the zoo to find out at what age the baby pandas were likely to be leaving their nest and how long should we wait before planning the trip. I didn't want to travel all the way to Austria to find that the pandas were tucked up in their nest asleep and I wouldn't see a thing.

We were told to wait 6 months ideally and that coupled up with falling right on top of Christmas, the idea to visit Vienna for Christmas to go to the Christmas markets and the Zoo was born.

Unfortunately this wasn't to happen as sadly my dad passed away and my life was turned upside down and unfortunately planning a holiday was off the cards.

After dealing with the sudden loss of my dad we decided the new year was the right time to go and it would be good for us both and a great distraction and so our new trip was planned and we headed to Vienna in February.

Having a bite to eat at Bristol Airport

Our trip started with a lie in at home and getting up at a leisurely pace and leaving the house around lunchtime where we started the three hour drive from Cornwall up to Bristol airport.
We arrived at the airport around 3pm and went through security and checked in and had a drink and a bite to eat before our early evening flight.

Waiting excitedly at the airport to fly to Vienna

On the aeroplane ready to take off

The flights were booked with a budget airline and we knew that with these you do not get much leg room so we decided that we would upgrade to the front seats on the plane where we would have a lot more space.
Unfortunately what we hadn't realised was that the weather on the day of our flight was horrendous and was pouring with rain. We had priority boarding so were in our seats first but this is where the problems started as with the doors open and people boarding the plane we were getting constantly dripped on and water was flicking off every ones coats and onto us. This was a minimal inconvenience as worse was yet to come.
Once the passengers were boarded the air stewardess approached us and explained that the rain water would have ingressed into the plane whilst the door was open and during take off this water 'may' drip on us!
She was not wrong!!!! Upon take off it was like somebody had turned a tap on and was leaving the tap to run and pour on my leg. The stewardess had provided us with lots of paper towels but wasn't really what we expected from upgrading our flight.

What did we expect with a budget airline? Once the water had stopped dripping we were relaxed onto the flight and reading a good book.

As soon as we got off the plane we were greeted by an English speaking rep for the local train that takes us into the city and we quickly had our tickets purchased to use the train and our adventure began.

This is where you find us in full blown tourist mode!!!
THERE IS A DOUBLE DECKER TRAIN!!!!!!
OK so we soon calmed down but there was a double decker train!!! And it was immaculate, we had seats, we had leather seats and free wifi and USB charging points. This was a far cry from British trains that are slow, run late and you very rarely get a seat and are tired and old machines.

The CAT overground direct train from the airport to the city centre - Vienna

Successfully mastering the train from the airport to the city centre in Vienna

After successfully mastering the overland train into the city we then had to master the tube system which is a lot easier than the London underground that we are used to and we quickly found the area of the city we were staying in and soon found our hotel.

Vienna tube map

Come back to my blog soon to read all about how we got on with our first night in Vienna.