Trip Day 8 - off to Vienna

Thursday

Yes, the wake up alarm rang at 4:20 am. Poor James and David had to bring us the the Bournemouth bus station  it was COLD … around freezing … but the roads were ok and the bus was punktuell. We left at 5:40 am promptly.

There were plenty of seats. 

It started to get light at 7:30 am. 

Everything went easily. We arrived in good time but should not have taken a later bus. These days check-in seems all self-serve but we had help at the machine. Every security seems different and this time they had it with my shoes. But I am always ok with it. 

When we were through everything we strolled around to find some brunch. Heathrow Airport was decorated for the season already too.

I didn’t feel like coffee but a hot chocolate seemed good and it was.

James thought while in England he should have one “Full English Breakfast”. My “Eggs Florentine” would have been better if the spinach would not have been so tough.

Our flight was supposed to go at 12:05 but this photo was taken at 12:42 pm. The captain said that Heathrow was busy. 

London!

The flight was fully booked but we had exit seats and comfortable. After we had landed and had our suitcases we tried to decide how to get to the Hotel Regina. Our trip  leader had given us several options information. I suggested to find our tour name tags in case somebody from OAT happened to be there to pick somebody else up and yes, a young man soon approached us. He lead at the the “airport driver” desk and soon a driver lead us to his taxi (fixed price ).

The traffic was heavy and took longer how it should but of course it didn’t matter to us because we were not on a schedule.

At the hotel we quickly got our room and started to settle in. The hotel is in the inner city of Vienna so quite “antique” (don’t know how else to say it). It is quite charming but one has to figure out the heating for example. 

At 6 pm there was a welcome gathering of our group. We had refreshments and chatted with fellow travelers next to us. It was nice and gave us a good feeling. 

The ceiling in this room.

Dinner was not included but several of us stayed in the hotel. My goulash was nice but bread dumplings (Klöße) instead of potato dumplings. 

We had to wake up so early this morning so we went to bed a little earlier than usual too. 

Travel had been good. Christmas Markets, here we come! After all, that is the title of this tour (Christmas Markets!)