6 hours in Vienna

During my most recent trip to Europe I traveled with three friends through five different countries. We spent the majority of our time in Budapest and had plans to get to Venice after the new year. After a lot of research it appeared that the majority of night trains from said locations stopped in Vienna for a train switch; so we decided that if we were going to be stopping in Vienna anyways, we mind as well make a day out of it. We booked the two legs of the trip separately, allowing for an afternoon/evening spent in Vienna.

We arrived at Wien Hauptbahnhof (Vienna Main Station) and were blown away with how nice the train station was. Because we were just having a short romp into the city we looked into luggage storage for the afternoon, and were delighted to find that they offered FREE luggage storage inside the train station. Although we all travel with backpacks and are used to lugging them around cities, it was such a relief to be without luggage for an afternoon.





Our one travel companion was staying in Vienna after we moved on to Venice, so our first stop was to get her settled into her hostel. After studying the tram map for quite some time, we purchased our tickets from a ticket machine and headed towards the hostel. She stayed at Hostel Ruthensteiner which is part of Europe Famous Hostels, their tag line is "sleep with someone famous" which I found to be quite amusing. Because most of my trips are usually at least 3 weeks, I try to save money on accommodations, meaning that I have a tendency to go for the party hostels or hostels a little further away. That being said, I fell in love with Hostel Ruthensteiner as soon as we walked in, and was actually pretty bummed that we weren't spending the night there. For starters, it was by far the cleanest hostel I've ever stepped foot in. On top of that they had free tea and coffee in the lobby, instruments laying around that anyone was welcome to play, and a very helpful staff. I definitely have Famous Hostels saved in the back of my mind for my next trip to Europe.

                                                                             

This trip was my second time being in Europe for New Year's Eve, and although it's not always easy leaving my family around the holidays, Europe sure does know how to do it right. Even though we landed in Vienna on January 1st, there was still plenty of Christmas celebration happening. We spent the majority of the evening wandering around the main streets of Vienna in the Historic Center( a UNESCO World Heritage Site), sipping on hot wine (a must when visiting Europe in the winter) and admiring the holiday decorations that filled the streets.

Couldn't resist paying an extra 3 euro for hot wine in these adorable mugs

St. Stephen's Cathedral, in the Historic Center of Vienna

Our evening was quickly running out of time, so we didn't get to do as much as we had planned. The majority of our time was spent eating street food and sipping on hot wine until it was time to catch our night train to Venice. 

On my next trip to Vienna I'll definitely hit up some of the museums such as the Kunsthistorisches and visit the Schonbrunner Gardens.