Day 34 – Thursday 11 June

The weather forecast had indicated rain today as well, however it had cleared overnight. I was keen to do a day trip on the Danube up the Wachau valley however, business matters had emerged via the email, so we attended to that. In a way it was not a bad thing as we welcomed a bit of a rest day from pounding stone cobbles or going somewhere. Also as we are coming back here in the future, we can explore more at leisure then.

We had breakfast in the hotel which was quite a good standard, down to the coffee. Austrians take their coffee seriously. I even managed to eat a small portion of scrambled eggs that were not underdone and actually seasoned. We are both enjoying the sourdough and seeded european breads and natural butter. The latter was not always available in Turkey or Hungary.

The other priority for the day was to do the pre check on our train platforms etc. The Hauptbahnhoff is quite large, and we like to take out any risk when transiting whether it be plane, train, bus or ferry. Our trip is 6 hours, and cost $250 nzd each for 1st class. There were only two options a day to Llubljiana, and the other one took a less scenic a route.

Regardless of price, it takes the fun out of travel if you are stressing about finding your platform etc at the last minute or getting totally lost in these transit centres. It also avoids any inconvenience and delays, whether you have insurance or not. On our investigation we found where the platforms were and that we would only have confirmation of the platform number 20 minutes before boarding. This was fine as we had the lay of the station and timings for being there.

The other task we had was to investigate food and snack options for the trip. As the train departed at 07:55 we did not have time for breakfast, so we either needed to buy it on the train or grab something to go. The Hauptbahnhof has multple eateries and shops including mini markets. There was even a dedicated Fleishkase shop, with a range of varieties including horse. Needless to say we did not try the horse, in-fact it put me off any of them.

We were so impressed with the Hauptbahn city as it is called, that we wandered around the levels and ended up having dinner at a Ramen place. It was not great Ramen even though it was a very popular place, but filled the spot along with some agedashi tofu and karage chicken.

Many of the eateries, mini markets and bakeries opening hours were from 0600-2200. So with a shop identified to come to in the morning for some fresh breakfast shopping we grabbed a punnet of delicious raspberries and blueberries (origin Portugal and Spain) and a pottle of mango sticky rice for dessert and headed home for a reasonably early evening, stopping off at reception to redeem our welcome drink vouchers.