We checked out of our Budapest hotel relatively early, grabbed a taxi and headed to the train station for a three hour rail trip to Vienna. We had second class seats and found the trip to be fairly comfortable. Upon our arrival in Vienna, we took a taxi to the Hotel Savoy on Lindengasse street. Out of all the hotels booked on our trip, this proved to be the oldest. We took an old lift to the 4th floor one-at-a-time since it was so small. Upon entering the room, we noticed 2 small closets on the left; one contained the toilet, the other was a washroom with sink and shower. Both were very narrow and the light switch was outside of the door. This room had no sitting area, just 3 beds and an old upholstered chair. I soon discovered that my bed felt like a mayan alter and the pillow was as flat as a pancake. It was a good thing that I was too tired to care each night. The dingy. patterned carpet tied and gold light fixtures tied the room together and made it feel like Mozart himself might have stayed there. This is Europe. We tried to tell Meagan that this was typical of older European hotels. She was spoiled by our more modern Budapest hotel. There were 3 large windows that opened up to the street below, without screen, of course. Again, we were so tired at night that we were hardly bothered by street lights and noise.
Our guided walking tour of the inner city was scheduled for 2:30. We explored a little on our own prior to the tour and found an ATM to fill our pockets with Euros. The weather was much cooler, but rainy. We welcomed the change to wear a jacket after sweltering in Budapest.
The guide showed us around the Hofburg Palace complex and St. Stephen's square. We also learned about the wealthy apartments and dwellings around the Ringstrasse where the city walls used to exist. By the time the tour was over, I felt so confused about which ruler reigned at what time. That night I tried to take notes on the history of the area from Pam's Rick Steve's guidebook to untangle my mind. I'm not sure it helped.
After our private tour, we went to a pub that served traditional Austrian dishes. Pam had smoked pork (ham) with sauerkraut and a dumpling. I had roast pork with sauerkraut and a dumpling, and Meagan had sausage with sauerkraut and a potato dumpling. We were so stuffed!
After dinner, we re-visited some of the sites we saw at the Hofburg Palace area so we could walk off dinner, then returned to our hotel to plan our next day.
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