We are having a tourist free day today. That is, after we go to Vienna Westbahnhof (West Train Station) to purchase tickets for the Wachau Valley trip tomorrow and train tickets to Villach for Monday. We purchase a 24 hour transit pass for all of Vienna’s public transit.
Mission accomplished! We have tickets for both trips! We make our way back to the area our hotel is in.
There is a park nearby that we plan to spend some time in avoiding the weekenders in Vienna 🙂 This park is called the Augarten. It was established in 1614 by Emporer Matthias. It obviously has a long history.
During WWII after the Germans took Vienna they built 2 large concrete towers in this park. They are called Flak Towers. Not pretty structures, they do dominate this park. It is interesting that they are 2 very different looking structures.
From this shot you can see the damage done by the Allies during the war.
We find a spot in an area of the park that has children’s playground
and some picnic tables and no crowds.
We set up our scrabble board and the game is on. It is a trouncing!! Not for me 🙁
We head back towards our hotel as someone needs the bathroom (okay it’s me) It is about 2:30 and we also need a bit of food, so we decide to split, Stu to the grocery store to buy some beer and wine and me to the little coffee/sandwich shop to buy a couple little sandwiches at the little place that Stu bought the great togo coffee yesterday. Simple, right??? NOT. I did not go into the coffee shop yesterday, so I accidentally went into the shop next door. Ordered 2 cordon blues which looked a reasonable size on the picture menu. When I saw what she was about to cook, I tried to stop her, but I guess my “whoa whoa” isn’t translatable in German and she didn’t whoa. So we have 2 monster deep fried schnitzel things!! We give one of them to the girl at the front desk of the hotel. We don’t even finish one between the two of us!
After we eat, another scrabble game spontaneously erupts. I am the victor this time 🙂