Free Day in Vienna

Ah Vienna – the city of Mozart, music & museums (and free second hand tobacco smoke). Apparently we arrived just in time for the Oktoberfest beer festival. Everywhere there are large pavilions where the various breweries are featuring their finest wares. While some seem to find this quite exciting I have never been able to see the attraction of excess consumption of alcohol and can only wonder at the state of some the livers in this place.

Of more use to me was a free entry day today for all the city’s museums. Surely Vienna has more museums that just about any other city in the world. You could easily spend days wandering the never ending corridors and still only be scratching the surface. I used the opportunity to revisit the museums of antique weapons and armour, the music museum and (most interesting of all) the papyrus museum. This contains fragments of ancient papyrus documents from the Egyptians, Romans and many other bygone civilizations. Although I obviously could not read a word of the symbols, it was fascinating to see the translations and realise that taxes and rents are as old as history itself.

The weather has continued to be hot and sunny – so much so that I had to retreat back to the air conditioning of the hotel mid way through the afternoon. Tomorrow will be our final day in Vienna before continuing our ride from Prague.

One thing that we have not had success with is finding a laundromat. We tried to ask for directions but could be forgiven for thinking that we were asking for the cure to cancer. I would have thought that this would have been one of the most common questions asked of a hotel concierge but apparently not. In the meantime we have wet washing hanging all over the room and also out of the window. Not a great look, but don’t want to waste the warm weather.