First let me tell you something about the public transport system in Vienna.
Its very similar to what many other big European cities have.
The public transport is built on the principle, that you should be able to go to any point within the city limits with minimal changes and through multiple options by various modes of transport, predictably.
For example, if you want to predictable go from Noida to Gurgaon in "X" amount of time, the only way to do so is catch the metro at Noida, go in a different direction towards Rajiv Chowk, and then change metro there to go to Noida.
In a city like Vienna.
you could catch one Metro line, change to another metro line and reach your destination, or catch a tram, or mix trams and Metro.
alternatively, there are many trains which take you to outskirts. An outskirts area is something which is not really inside the city. for example, the Airport.
There are trains crisscrossing the city which you could use if your place of interest lies along a railway line.
There is one common pass.
A 48 hour pass costs 10Eur per person.
The Bus had dropped us to WestBahnof, which is West Train station.
As we stood with our suitcases, we could either go to Metro Station, or to Tram station or to the Railway station itself, within 100 meters of each other.
All major train stations are usually built near metro and Train stations, so changeover is painless.
However, being strangers in a strange land, we head to something called "Information".
Those guys spoke English, and gave us a subway map.
You can view the routes and maps here if you a re curious. I have linked to English page here
www.wienerlinien.at
Now subway maps are simple, since the Subway or metro is basically 5 lines crisscrossing the city.
Much more complex is the tram map. Normally its possible to get a direct tram, but tourists normally take the metro, because its simpler, even though it takes more time because you travel more than you need to.
As we show them our hotel address, they tell us that we need to get down at a Metro station called Suditroler Platz.
However, there could be a direct tram connection, but they do not have a map for that, as they are the railway info center.
But no issues.
One guy has a smartphone, and he asks us to wait a couple of minutes.
He opens the website, and finds out that Tram number 6 will lead us directly to our station.
Great!
This is our second experience of European hospitality. This guy is a railway information official, and he does not know anything about tram schedules. Still he goes beyond his duty call to find us the tram route and platform!
He also guides us to the automated ticket booth. We take the 48 hours ticket. The automated system has 6 languages supported and one of them happens to be English.
With our passes in our hands, we head to the tram platform.
Now trams do not have fixed schedules. They just have a frequency. Ours was once every 6-9 minutes
The reason for this is that trams run on rails cut into roads. So they have to follow the rules of road traffic, i.e. stop at traffic signals etc.,
Our tram comes and we take a seat on the nearly empty tram.
Within 20 minutes we are at our destination.
Now comes the problem part.
How to find our hotel.
I had booked Sommerhotel Weiden from booking.com because it was the cheapest hotel with breakfast.
102 EU for 2 nights.
Cheapest hotel with Breakfast and WIFI was 130 EU. And then there was one for 105 EU and no breakfast, only WIFI.
Since we cannot eat electromagnetic waves, breakfast won.
We could just find one person on the deserted platform, and in a mix of broken german and english, we got to know that its on the other side of the road.
We drag our heavy suitcases for 100 meters, and arrive in an area with some restaurants.
Its all empty. I guess on saturday most people head to the city center, and not on the main residential areas!
I walk inside a restaurant, and try to figure out if anyone speaks english.
There is one nice gentleman eating his lunch, who speaks english.
He leaves his food, and asks me to come with him.
Walks out of the resturant, and walks with us for a good 20 meters, to point us to the right street!
Now thats a first.
would you leave eating your food, just to walk out and show a tourist which street his hotel is in?
We were already loving Vienna.
Finally its around 1pm we reach our hotel, where we get to know that the checkin time is 3pm. So we have to wait 2 hours at the restaurant.
Now, in India, checkout is 11am and checkin is 12pm or 1pm, but in Europe, cleaning staff is extremely limited. So checkout is at 10am(or 9am) and checkin is 3pm (or even 4pm).
Our room was yet to be cleaned.
Anyways, we confirmed that the tap water is safe to drink, and filled our water bottles.
Water in Europe is very expensive if you buy it, however, at most places tap water is safe to drink. But you should always ask. We carried 2 one liter bottles from India (empty of course), and these would serve us well on our hikes and day trips.
Another thing, bottled water in many parts is actually sparkling water, or "Soda". So in a restaurant, ask for tap water.
We sit in on the sofa, and generally make plans for the day.
Its simple, we are sleepy and tired, and it makes perfect sense to catch a quick nap. So we decide to dump the luggage, as soon as we get our room, change our clothes, and head out into the city, which does not make any sense at all.
At exactly 2:50pm, local time, we get our room, and after an hour of changing and resting and all, we are all ready to head back to the tram station, which is also a metro station.
Its time to see Vienna through eyes which have not slept for 36 hours.
TO BE CONT........