Friday 7th
Vienna is full of "culture" as well as a lot of middling "creds" so I was determined to have a bit of the former as well as the latter
on my little trip there, you have thus been warned of impending culture-pics as well as goon-pics.
To facilitate a bit of culture then, I had booked flights that got me there lunchtime on the Friday and despite a slight 'will I make
the transfer in Zurich' anxiety caused by a delay on my first flight (direct flights were available but would have got me in late and
would have had to leave earlier) the trip was pretty easy (made the connection with minutes to spare, second plane was just starting
boarding as I got to it - phew!).
Early(ish) morning sustenance to get me on my way then...
Yay arrival!
It was raining in Vienna though, and the views from the airport-city train were not very inspiring
Hotel was about 15 mins walk from the station (in the rain)
Hung around a bit once I'd checked in to see if the weather would relent, it didn't so I headed into the city in the direction of some
indoor-culture - the main cathedral Stephansdom.
I don't do religion at all (pack of made up self serving horse**** designed to subjugate the masses and enrich the "chosen" as far as
I'm concerned - this is all religions you understand not specifically this one) but they do tend to have built some pretty splendid
buildings (at the cost of what indoctrinated labour you may ask) through the years. This one was quite pretty too.
Nice organ
Think it got blown up a bit during WW2 but it looks pretty olde still.
Vienna is full of spectacular churches, another one just down the street (didn't go in just then, did a couple of days later)
Got a little bit lost wandering around in the rain then, but happened upon another church which I recognised from The Third Man
(great 1949 movie set in Vienna - you really should watch it, especially if you've just been to Vienna)
Was a bit wet by then so headed into a bar for some foods and a (lovely) beer
(was a Danish Gose if you care)
but felt I should really have a local beer after that, Beer Street seemed like a well named place (was just next to that last church)
Was a huge underground beer-fest - something like 30 taps
Oddly I was the only punter in there tough, so didn't hang around
The pubs seemed stupidly quiet for a Friday evening in fact, I popped into an Irish bar as well which was almost empty (but with
loads of 'reserved' signs on all the tables - perhaps thats the fashion reserve a table and turn up late?) - that wasn't great
but was stupid cheap (€2.80/pint Guinness!) - maybe was happy hour?
Wasn't really feeling the Friday night vibe so called it a day - intended an earlyish start to get some culture in in the AM before
some creds in the PM.
Saturday 8th
Hotel did a splendid big breakfast, so stocked up on that to power me through the day and headed out early to get a better (not raining
anymore) look at the city. Wandered up through the city again (worked out where I got a bit lost the day before) and headed to the
big Imperial Palace place ; Hofburg.
Just at the edge of the Hofburg I spotted another Third Man location ; Harry Lime's apartment building
and opposite it, the statue where the dying Harry Lime was carried by his two friends and the mysterious "Third Man" in the movie (not
a spoiler, movie starts with that premise)
Vienna is full of domes as well as churches, heres one as you enter the Hofburg
Just the other side of the impressive Hofburg is a bunch of also impressive museums and the like - was heading to the
Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History before you snigger too much).
Which was OK, if a bit stuffy - bottom floor was full of 'objects'
Grand staircases (and domes)
Upper floor full of paintings
Some of which I recognised (showing my middleclassness off a bit there)
Bruegel;
(they has a lot of Bruegel ones)
Vermeer;
Culture for the day done then by now (had spent a couple of hours in the Arty place), headed off to Prater then to meet the other goons.
--
I walked up to Prater from the city, just to see some other bits of the place, probably took less time than I thought so had some
lunch and wandered around the place a bit before meeting up with the goons at 2-ish.
Once we'd met up (Ian, Jordan, Conor, Owain, JayJay and once we'd worked out which of the other people standing around looking
confused he was / once he'd worked out which of the tourist goons we were) Tilen, we meandered off in search of creds.
Distracted slightly by this apparent independent nation in the amusement park (
Kugelmugel), we headed towards the olde woody thing.
Yay, first coaster of the year
Hochschaubahn (and one I wanted, I have a theory its possible to get "all the wood" so happy
when I can tick off another one)
Felt a bit "great-yarmouth-roller-coaster-ery", but was nice enough. Not very thrilling, seemed to struggle hugely on the lift hill
but had a couple of tricks up its sleeve and was fun.
Just around the back of the woody is one of the newer coasters,
Maskerade an indoor Gerstlauer spinner thing with a bit of a
sparkly themed area before you get out onto the elevator lift and the ride proper.
Was OK - not the longest ride but a bit different at least.
(Might be struggling with the order we did things a bit now but..)
Think the
Boomerang was up next, stuck in the middle of the park it stood out a bit
Famed perhaps for the lap-bar restraints rather than the normal head-bangy affair, was interested in how they helped. Well they were
not as comfy as expected as they were just metal bars rather than expected some sort of padded things, but yes, better than an ear
bashing anyway.
I think some lunch was called at that point - but I'd eaten earlier so didn't really fancy it and I wanted to do the big wheel and
noone else fancied that, so whilst goons ate and drank I headed off to the famous Riesenrad (Giant Wheel). Dates from 1897 for crying
out loud - how ridiculous is that! Its also featured in the Third Man in a pretty important scene (two characters having a bit of
a discussion whilst riding the wheel), so getting a further Third Man bit of geekery out of my system.
€10 a go though - everything in Prater is pay per ride and it does mount up.
And theres a bit of Q-burden so apologies to the goons for keeping them waiting for me a bit more than they perhaps expected.
Get on after a while - olde looking cabin things don't look 100+ year old though, were double glazed for a start!
But the ride was smooth and good I thought - some great views over Prater of course as well.
City not so visible from it as its a little bit away
Met back up with the others and we rode
Megablitz next. This was probably the best coaster there in fact, which for a ropey old
Vekoma was a bit of a surprise.
Goons being goons then, we went in search of the kiddy-cred, but first came across the kiddy-cred that we knew we would be denied -
Auto BergBahn (and its a woody too - pah!)
Ridable kiddy-cred is a little SBF Visa thing
Race - same ride as Racing Coaster at Winter Wonderland, with pretty much the
same knock-off Cars themeing too.
Ride op laughed a little at us all, but she still offered us the kiddie-sweets as we left - nice touch (even if sugar is evil).
The evidence suggests that we rode
Wilde Maus next - unsurprisingly a wild mouse. Secretly I might quite like wild mouse rides,
MUCH better than their evil spinning relatives anyway.
Another almost kiddie-cred next, powered as well, ugh
Der Zug des Manitu - we had not seen it cycle so it surprised us a bit by
starting off backwards for a bit, but then headed off forwards for far too many laps of its little circuit.
I could do my little "this means nothing to me" Vienna joke next, since the
Insider coaster I already had ridden in its previous
life as 'Spinning Coaster Maihime' before that
killed someone and they removed it.
However to be honest I could barely remember anything about it so was happy to get reacquainted with the thing - and the inside effects
and fun queue line made it much more memorable this time.
I think we rode
Dizzy Mouse then - a nasty spinning mouse that seemed to spin FAR TOO MUCH.
(pic from earlier on the wheel)
Must have a bit of a break then, goons needing refuelling with some beer and (evil) sugar products. (Beer isn't evil, just sugar)
We were obviously giddy from beer/sugar as we seemed to do the horrible
Volare next
it was pretty horrible - think the trick is to make sure you get comfy in the restraints before they lock you in as I seemed to be riding with the junk in my pockets causing me pain through the experience. Never mind, never have to ride that one again.
This year's big-travelling-ride (compared to Olympia Looping last year) is
Hollenblitz which was €7 a go - the most expensive
cred there. Few of us who had the cred sat it out (to be fair Conor and Tilen had sat out a lot of the ropey creds too so far) but
I hadn't ridden it before and it was an impressive thing too.
We only had one cred left to get, but for some reason we got distracted by this piece of crap instead, I feel sure that Conor was going
to buy us all a pint if it was crap - it was crap, wheres my pint? (actually I let him off as he did the driving the next day
)
Was just a stupid dinosaur themed walkthough with crappy fake lifts, crappy fake jeep trips, crappy fake dinocrap. So bad it was not
even good-bad, ugh. Don't believe anyone who tells you it was "fab" they are lying to you.
Moving on then,
Super 8er Bahn was last up for the copious creds
This looks quite substantial, but was a bit forgettable. Not a terrible Pinfari as it didn't make the mistake of trying to go upside
down at all - I suppose it was a bit quick in places and tried hard, was a longish ride. Ultimately just another +1 though.
We just wandered around for a while after that, waiting for it to get dark really.
Spent far too long watching (and noone riding) this hypnotic (and very evil looking) flat ride
It got dark, the place looked prettier.
Do not sit here danger!
We rode some ghost train things, Owain & I had ridden one earlier in the day (next to Megablitz) which was absolutely awful, but this
one is world-class - brilliant thing.
We were flagging a bit by then I think so after a few of us rode the star-flyer - amazing views from the top of that at night, but
quite chilly (and scary) up at the top of that - we called it a day.
Fab day of gooning around then. Place was probably better than I thought it was going to be, perhaps the coasters were less good
than I thought they might be. Theres nothing great here at all, but theres a lot of middling stuff. Fair few violent looking flat
rides though that noone felt like braving (we are CoasterForce after all, not EvilFlatRideForce). If I were back in Vienna in the
future I might pop in for a couple of hours and do a few rides but not sure I'd go out of my way to head back here though.