Ausflüge von Wien (Day Trips from Vienna)

enjoying the fall leaves in Slovakia

Although we spent a good amount of time in Vienna, the temptation to make a couple day trips was too much to resist. So one day we hopped on a 2.5 hour train to Budapest, and the next day we went to a Viennese cafe in the morning and visited Slovakia in the afternoon.

Budapest

Our trip was a bit less planned than usual, so we read up on both stops the day before and then mostly wandered around. Getting off the train at the Keleti Station in Budapest was very much like what I expected from a post-Communist eastern European country--pretty bleak, with lots of concrete and moldering buildings and abandoned construction projects. We also discovered that Budapest isn't big on promoting tourism at the train station, so we pretty much had to pick a street and hope we were walking the right way.

the statues are important people in Hungary's history, including fierce-looking Magyar chieftains (right picture)

We walked about 3km before we finally saw something I recognized, the Heroes' Square (aka, Hősök tere). We congratulated ourselves on not completely walking in the wrong direction, then found an invaluable walking tours map in the art museum by the memorial. Next stop: the famous Széchenyi Medicinal Bath (the largest in Europe!) and then Vajdahunyad Castle (yeah, we don't know how to say it either) in the City Park.

The baths are one of the many things I would like to try if we ever go back to Budapest. Unlike in Germany, it looks like most of the bathers wear swimsuits, which is a requirement if I'm going to be sharing any sort of water body with strangers. Next time! The castle was quite eclectic and housed the National Agricultural Museum that, according to TripAdvisor reviews, is actually pretty interesting. That's another thing for the 'next time list!'.

Vajdahunyad Castle

home of the national ag museum, in the castle grounds

We then walked even further and finally made it to the old part of town. Keleti train station is on the Pest side, which is much flatter with wide, tree-lined avenues. We heard about several interesting-sounding museums in Pest (the Terror Museum and the Hospital in the Rock), but we decided to see more of the city instead. We finally crossed the famous chain bridge, over the Danube, and into Buda.

looking across the Danube at the Buda side of the city

A Working Vacation in Vienna

It's not very often that J and I spend more than 2 nights at a place on a trip--we usually have a tightly packed agenda in order to do and see as much as possible. For this trip, however, J mostly needed to access materials in the Austrian National Library (and possibly the archive), so we rented an apartment on Kolschitzkygasse and called it home for 6 nights.

many buildings on our street were social housing complexes--it's an interesting system

We started out at the National Library, which is housed in the Imperial Hofburg Palace. Outside, it's quite impressive! We found the quality of the catalog and the service to be much less impressive, but it was pretty to look at. Mostly, it's the go-to study spot for college students in Vienna. Nevertheless, we spent about a good portion of the trip working in the library.

the entry to the Austrian national library...not intimidating at all :)