Usually with trip planning, Sasha and I are in alignment and it all come together pretty easily. This was the first real time that it didn’t - so it all became a bit complicated as we tried to work through our opposing viewpoints. Sasha and wanted to fly in and and out of Bratislava because it was cheaper - but I wanted to fly in and out of Vienna because flight times for Bratislava would mean taking time off work and mean leaving before anyone else on the Sunday, plus flights to Vienna were not much more in price. Sasha also wanted to do our week-long “Western Germany” idea directly after Vienna; I objected because I’d need 5 days of leave, only 3.5 was “unspoken for” for 2017 unless we curtailed or scrapped other trips or didn’t take the 3 days off between Christmas and New Years (our Christmas plans still undefined by this point) - Western Germany could wait until I got my 2018 leave allocation. However we could do something shorter, and we'd been wanting to go to Salzburg as Sasha lives Sound of Music - chances of going to Salzburg when it’s sunny and warm are now not likely, so why not aim for snow and tack it onto Vienna? Sure. Problem solved? No. Sasha wanted 3 days there - that was almost all my leave and some might be needed for Christmas yet - so I wanted only 2 days. Flight options from Salzburg airport to Berlin were slim, expensive, and indirect, not helping either of our causes - and to fly out of another airport would cut into our Salzburg time because of the time needed to travel to that airport. For Sasha that justified the extra day - for me it seemed ridiculous to waste an extra day's leave when hardly any of it would be spent in the place we’re meant to be visiting, even if that meant reducing our 2 days in Salzburg to one-and-a-half or thereabouts as a result.
You'd imagine that we'd be holding up everyone else since our deliberations took weeks, but actually no - Nat had invited other friends of hers in the UK to come along on this trip (some whom we knew, but Sandra and Christian didn't) but had not given them a deadline by when to give an answer. So, Sandra wasn't able to book group accommodation as no one knew how many people were going - in the end Sandra & Christian booked their own separate accommodation. This situation bought us time to work out what we were doing, and eventually Sasha and I agreed on a course of action. Sasha was willing to concede only 2 days in Salzburg because we'd travel to Salzburg on the Sunday night, giving us 2 nights there and after some extensive searching I'd found an option of flying back to Berlin which gave us most of the day in Salzburg. I was willing to concede on flying into Bratislava, because by now the flights direct to Vienna had become too expensive to justify not taking a half-day of leave. So now we were sorted - we decided we'd join the others in the group accommodation when that was booked, which it hadn't been yet because the others still hadn't agreed on who was coming and who wasn't! They did eventually get that sorted, we booked a 6-person dorm room in a Hostel together and Sasha and I decided to book the same late night bus from Bratislava to Vienna as the others to maximize our Bratislava time plus also make it easier when we all would check in together. Now everything was in place - we just had to wait for the trip to roll around!
Day 1 - Bratislava, SLovakia
When I had not been receptive to Sasha's suggestion that we fly via Bratislava over Vienna, I think Sasha had been incredulous that I was willing to forgo adding another country to the list - the last, and only opportunity to tick off Slovakia for me. But I'd long come to terms with not visiting Slovakia, no one I knew had raved about Bratislava or Slovakia in general and when I did agree to go it was not because "oh it might be nice after all" but because simply it was going to be far cheaper that way. It was nice that we were going, it was nice I could add it to the list after all and it was nice that we were maximising our time there by catching the "Party Bus" to Vienna with the others, but to say I was enthusiastic about going to Bratislava would be a lie. About the only thing that I was enthused about going to Bratislava is that in the movie Eurotrip, it was parodied as a place the main characters get stranded in with a handful of US$ coins but discover that the economy is so poor that with that money they are able to stay in the Hilton, party it up there like millionaires, and drank a lot of absinthe - so I liked the idea of having some absinthe there!
Day 2 - Vienna Exploring
Day 3 - Venturing OnWards
Day 4 - Discovering Salzburg
Day 5 - More Salzburg, back to Berlin
Following the Fortress, we descended down the hill on the Cable Car and went for another visit through the Christmas markets, and then up the hill a little bit to the Stiegl Keller. Stiegl is an Austrian beer, from Salzburg and recently we'd seen it plastered all over the Christmas Markets where they had a little "Beer Hall" for you to go into. We hadn't partaken in any in Germany so why not have it direct from the source? There was a restaurant, but also a little bar area so we ordered 3 smaller glasses of beer - the normal, a wheat one and a seasonal one to share between us two. The seasonal was not anything special, the normal was well, very much "normal" and a standard, fairly bland-ish beer, while the wheat for me was the stand-out and quite tasty. |
Summing Up
Although we had no snow in Vienna, we did get snow in Salzburg which is what we had been hoping for. Salzburg was a great little city to visit - and little it certainly is when compared to Vienna or anywhere else. Very compact, easy to get around on foot but very pretty and picturesque. It was also great that Kathi was able to not only catch up with us, but took the time to show us around the city - having our very own "personal tour guide" was an excellent way to get our bearings and get to see those Sound of Music sights!
As for Bratislava - for a country and a city that I only reluctantly agreed to visit in the end, I had a great time and enjoyed our short visit there a lot. Having now been, I am still glad we did not go instead of Vienna during our Budapest trip - in fact the amount of time we had in Bratislava was probably the right amount, a few hours where we did all of what we wanted to do but didn't have too much time on our hands. I'm sure Slovakia probably has more to offer - probably - but I'm not sure what it might be, which basically illustrates the point that for me personally there has been no real reason to draw me to the country above any others. It was certainly cheaper than Vienna though as former Eastern European countries tend to be, but definitely not Eurotrip cheap! Its also hard to see a reason for now to go back to Slovakia, so it might well be that this becomes my one and only visit to this country. Only time will tell on that one.
As for Austria, would we go back? I think yes - Vienna would not be high on the list to revisit, however I could see us going to Salzburg again and maybe, just maybe, one day we'll visit Innsbruck as well. I do think though that any future visit should be done in the summer time when the mountains are green and the hills are alive... probably with the sound of some kind of bug but there's always the possibility of hiking there and there's a couple of train things which are not essential but might be nice to do. For now though we've seen the two main important cities in Austria - and no map this time, because what can be seen by drawing is a bit unremarkable so I won't bother!
Above all else, it was a great time spent with friends - and we mustn't forget the reason for the trip coming together in the first place, which namely was Sandra's birthday. Sandra is very much down to earth and wasn't keen to publicize the fact it was her birthday, which is why we didn't overtly do anything to mark it during the course of the trip. However over the coffee with Sandra and Christian in Vienna after the others had left for Bratislava, Sandra told us about how it all happened from her side - she and Christian hadn't wanted to go away and weren't sure how travelling with a group for the weekend would work, but Nat convinced her otherwise and they had discovered that in actual fact it was rather easy, rather enjoyable and would easily something they could do again when their baby arrives (I have neglected to mention that Sandra and Christian are expecting - this weekend was the first time it became "officially" known to everyone, so Sandra was careful to have non-alcoholic drinks all weekend which was not a problem).
Lastly, over this coffee we also learned how Vienna came to be the destination from the list of suggested places Nat had given her she chose Vienna as she liked the idea of going to Switzerland. Yes, that's right - Sandra initially thought Vienna was in Switzerland! when she discovered it was in Austria she didn't want to go as much as Sasha and I didn't but it was too late to change and in the end, she was very glad to have visited Vienna and Austria - as was Sasha and I. But how funny that Sandra didn't know where she was agreeing to visit and that she too was disappointed when she discovered it was in Austria! I have no idea what the alternatives were, but it all worked out for the best in the end!