Austria, Vienna: Why wouldn't you map that?

Only a 3-hr train from Budapest to Vienna, povided it doesn't take 1 hr to leave the station...

Anyway, arrived in Vienna the night of the 19th, checked in to Wombat's hostel, found a great little restaurant called 'Mozart' which served Viennese soup (didn't know that was a 'thing' but it was deicious & hit the spot: soup, noodles, beef, veggies- mmmm!)

Onto the city stuff... Spent 2 days walking, literally, all around Vienna. And the overarching themes are 1- wow that is a cool looking building, 2- why the hell wouldn't the map (given to me by the hostel) indicate what it is?

(Note: many hostels give out great maps with numbered 'must see's of the city, tips, descriptions, good places to eat, drink, etc and they are usually great. But this one was awful as half the stuff I saw was missing from it... Or Vienna just doesn't care to show off?!)

And so, when I can eventually add pictures, there will be several cool buildings, with interesting architecture and beautifully crafted figurines adorning each one, but unfortunately, that is about all I'll be able to tell you about each one. Even the poorer quarter, which I visited on the second day here, although much less intricate, had beautiful sculpting to display.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the only beef I had with this hostel. While they were a great place, it was too big a place for an individual traveller to meet anybody, and seemed to be filled with packs of 18-yr-old European kids on week-long vacation-type things. It was also quite a trek to the city centre, so i had to walk past about 2-3 km of a St. Catherine-esque style street, with lots of Western shops, prior to getting to the old, cool stuff. As the guidebook says 'no other city effortlessly combines a rich history that has left behind such remarkable gifts as gothic Stephansdom or baroque Schonbrunn palace with contemporary gems as...'

I wonder if, due to the fact that, although they had several invasions & struggles prior to WWII, they recovered quite quickly post-war, especially as compared to Hungary, and so the people have become a little less proud and a little more complacent. The harder times are further in the past, they are a full part of the EU (i FINALLY got to use euros without exchanging, yay!), and so they have less need to show off the rich aspects of their country. Or the cultural richness is so apparent that they don't need to flaunt!

Just my two cents & only after two days, so take with a grain of salt, or two, and definitely stay tuned for a post about Freud's museum, the most unique 'museum' I've seen, and the most thought-provoking display within the Jewish museum.

And since I seem to be a bit behind these days, as a real-time update, if I'm posting this it's because I've safely arrived in Salzburg, Mozart's birthplace! I'll spend a night here before moving on to.........