Vienna Roll Sir?

Yesterday we woke to birdsong, including a nearby cuckoo and woodpecker, today it was city traffic and heavy driving rain on Helga’s roof.

What a difference a day makes!

We left Ure and Lillian in the hills of Czech, and drove to Brno looking for an Apple store that Lillian had got us directions for. Margaret’s iPad has condensation in it, caused by the serious heat of Cesky the other day and the fact it was in the black shoulder bag on a sunny seat in Helga for hours!

We found the huge retail park we needed, but drove past it. Satnav told us it would be thirteen miles to get back to it, as we found ourselves on the adjacent motorway! Anyway, we found our way back, only to miss the bloody entrance again, so this time we gave up and headed for a town recommended by our Polish friend Piotr.

Last night I washed Helga and Margaret and I polished her ready for our next leg. By the time we got to Mikulov, our next stop, she was a dirty bitch again. The police traffic chappies were out with their blue lights when we arrived, and we found it impossible to find a suitable parking place. What we wanted to see most was the Citadel on the top of the hill on which the town is built. Sadly, our wee legs are protesting at the amount of work they.ve had to do in the past month.

Lets go to Vienna I said, it’s only up the road. So here we are, we spent the morning in the city centre and what a place. It rained for the first couple of hours and the sky has been grey all day, won’t help the photos, but hey ho.

More. Much more, later.

Our second full day in Vienna started with an early start. Something wasn’t quite right though. Roads weren’t busy, train wasn’t either. Then I remembered hearing something about a bank holiday because it was Ascension Day. Must be a religious thing even though an enormous amount of Muslim lookalikes live in Vienna.

Our first trip was to the market, an enormous affair of over 120 stalls and dozens of interesting wee restaurants. We eventually found the market by way of one of the main concert halls of the city, mega impressive, with men in morning suits and a suitable amount of people with their heads firmly and securely, up their holes!

The market, impressive as it was, was closed. Not a sausage was seen, nor even a pair of big mama knickers. You know the sort!

Where to go? There are twenty seven palaces in Vienna! Schunbrunn Palace is the daddy of them all. With 1441 rooms, huge grounds an Orangery, State Vehicle Museum, the lot. We saw a sign for this so we jumped on a bus and away we went. It was a serious piece of real estate, but there were about thirty seven million people, in particular, Orientals, queuing up to get in. We did the grounds and they were a bit large. Old Emperor Franz Josef lived here with his beloved wife Sisi, He might have been a bit rich.

Legs suitably walked off us we caught a train to the Danube, had to see it in daylight. Fabulous but still no blue to be seen. We found a huge retail place not unlike Castlecourt, times five. The only places open were the food courts and they were rockin! We had some delicious street type food a bit earlier so hunger was not an issue.

We found our way back to base and went for a siesta, it was very warm, we were knackered, marvellous.

Tonight we’re staying in because the world that is Vienna is having a night off, and so are we.