Vienna's Eye?

After our big day at Schönbrunn palace, we decided to push on and see a bit more before we called it a day. So we caught the train out to the outskirts of the main city of Vienna to visit the Prater.

First step was to stock up on free drinking water again.

And then the Prater itself loomed into view. This is the big ferriswheel that has apparently survived world wars when other countries’ so-called pathetic ferriswheels haven’t.

We decided to wander around the surrounding amusement park before committing to a ride on the ferriswheel.

Tom fancies himself as a bit of a conducting genius.

I fancy myself as Marilyn Monroe whenever I find air or steam rising from vents in the ground. Not the most effective when you're wearing shorts, though.

I was very tempted to give the dodgem cars a go. They were always my favourite ride as a kid. But I decided to be a grown up, and moved on.

And then we bought our tickets to the Prater, and began our ascent.

And that was our thrilling little ride on the Prater!

We decided to be even more efficient and kill another bird with almost the same stone by hopping on the Metro for a couple more stops and getting out at UNO city. We didn’t know much about UNO city at all, except that the girl at the reception desk in our hotel said it was awesome.

So we hopped out, walked around, and couldn’t for the life of us figure what the fuss was all about. It was just a large, empty complex of tall office buildings.

So we gave up. Here is Tom trying to convey a mixture of sadness (thus the thumbs down) and puzzlement (thus the raised hand). Oh and by the way, he’s not really that fat, that’s just his money belt sticking out. He definitely is that dorky all the time though, with his backpack straps done up.

So! We still have no idea why a tourist would bother seeing UNO city, even in the daytime (although we can’t say we’ve tried the latter, and perhaps we're not allowing for United Nations groupies), but we definitely enjoyed the Prater.

And that finally marked the end of our very big second day in Vienna.