Saturday in Vienna

Fortuitously dodging BA strikes, I managed to squeeze in a weekend with my friend Dan before heading into Hungary with Thibault's parents.

Dan's fiancee was away for the weekend, so it was just Dan and I facing a Viennese heatwave. Dan suggested going up into the mountains overlooking Vienna for some hiking at slightly higher altitude, which we duly did by metro and then bus. (I made extremely good use of my three day travelcard!)

Having got our last bus up into the foothills of the Alps we set off on an 8km walk with a number of City views along the way.

Our walk was also distinguished by huge numbers of butterflies which for once I managed to capture pretty well.

As much as anything this was a walk in the woods, offering welcome shade.

And suddenly appearing out of the woods was this tower. Unfortunately we hadn't quite got it timed right - it was only open in the afternoon. A fine example of 19th century over-engineering. They were looking for a tower from which to take scientific measurements, but had to end up with a mock medieval castle.

 In the middle of nowhere is this extensive restaurant. It was mid morning so time for elevenses. Two satisfying lumps of apple strudel please.

Different butterfly - never seen anything quite like it. Or maybe a moth. Anyway, open for identification!

We came to another measurement tower, which this time we could go up for some scenic panoramas over Vienna

Dan on the phone to Nikki. Well if you don't get good reception here....

So this is the tower we climbed up for the views. A bit more like Keble College than a castle, but still highly decorative for its purpose. Also an interesting shape. It had a spiral staircase, but not the usual round one that one finds in, say, a lighthouse, but a rounded oblong. This had the advantage of making it a lot less dizzying in descent.

 At the end of our walk was this cute little church, fronted by a very touristy restaurant with wonderful views.

But given it was such a touristy spot, Dan suggested getting a bus to a different area famed for its vineyards for lunch. We saw the bus and made a dash for it. And felt very pleased at ourselves at having made it. Until two stops later we discovered we had caught the right bus but in the wrong direction. And having got to the end of the route it wasn't returning for half an hour. Which just happened to be the estimated walking time back to where we started. So rather than spend 30 minutes in a scenic car park, we decided to retrace our "steps" to whence we had begun. Which was a pretty walk.

 Dan's target was a district on the outskirts of Vienna (more a village that had been subsumed by the city) that was famed for what I can only describe as wine bars (although there is a German name for them). They are run by vineyard owners apparently. They each have a "beer" garden, either a courtyard or some view over the hillside. So we commenced at about 4pm upon a "wine crawl" which lasted about 5 hours and did include lunch/dinner.

I think it is fair to say that this was not on the normal tourist trail for a Viennese visitor, but that is the advantage of having a local to stay with. Although Dan had never actually been here either. The advantage of having a visitor - you get out to places you always meant to go but don't get around to when you live in a place.

Anyway, we had a super time, just working our way from one to another mixing spritzers with glasses of wine and catching up since we hadn't seen each other for a year. Honestly couldn't have thought of a happier way to spend a day.

Possibly the most fun was at this place below. Here you can see Dan on the roof terrace. As it appears, were were the only customers. But not the only people there as opposite us were two guys around 60 acting as DJs and squabbling as to what to play next to their non-existent audience. I thought it would be rude to photograph them, but one was wearing an Einstein T-shirt, which was just perfect as he too had a shock of unruly grey hair. It was like seeing Einstein in an Einstein T-shirt.

We had lunch at this bar/restaurant below, a little larger than most. Great views. Although while we were here, fortunately under cover, a truly torrential rainstorm hit. A shame for a wedding party which was going on at the far end of the terrace. They had parasols, but it soon became clear that was not going to be enough for them. One by one they realised the storm wasn't going to pass over in moments, and so one bloke ferried up and down with an umbrella collecting elderly and by now quite bedraggled guests into more watertight shelter.

As you can see below, this wasn't the most prettified tourist area, just a place people come to eat and drink casually.

In our final bar, where we sat inside as was now getting dark, we met a very chatty bar maid. Obviously Dan is fluent in German so could chat away with no problem. But she could also speak English. It turned out she had an Egyptian partner, who didn't speak German at all, so they only conversed in English. All I can say given the poor standard of her English (compared to most Austrians) is that somehow love finds a way!