Above - my Easy Jet carriage awaits
Above - my personal favourite - the hippos at the zoo
Above - a hippo
Above - a panda
Above - flamingos
Above - an elephant
Above - a penguin poses for the camera
Above - a sun bathing seal
Above - it was even too hot for the tigers
Above - another poser!The alarm clock sounded at 3h45 this morning. Whose bright idea was it to book a 7h40flight from Gatwick?! I left the house at 4h30 and caught the 5h09 train to Gatwick. I’ve never been out so early in the morning. It was barely light and the streets were the emptiest I’ve ever seen them – too early for the buses, too early for commuters, only the odd taxi ferrying mad holiday makers like me to the train station! The only other people up and about were people still out from yesterday – their evening had stretched into the early hours of the morning and the majority of them were looking worse for wear. It was bizarre to think that their yesterday was coming to an end as my today had well and truly begun.
I arrived at Gatwick just before 6h and was confronted with an enormous check in queue. I had actually checked in on line – ‘to save time at the airport’ as Easy jet put it. Trouble is you end up queuing in the same queues as everyone else who had checked in online (it makes the ticket cheaper – you have to pay to check in at the airport these days) as you still have to hand over your suitcase. I stood in the queue for 25 minutes. Why can’t Gatwick be like other airports and have separate queues for each flight rather than lumping everyone together in one massive queue? I made a mental note to myself that it might well be worth paying for so called ‘speedy’ boarding in future, either that or only taking hand luggage. I arrived the other side of the hand baggage security at about 6h40. Breakfast time. Coffee and croissant a la Gatwick, how continental of me. I had 20 minutes until the boarding gate was due to open. Trouble was I had no watch. It’s in for repair. Now you’d think there’d be clocks everywhere in an airport wouldn’t you? But oh no, it tells you that boarding is due to start at 7h but nowhere does it tell you what the actual time is. Is that so you don’t notice as much when things are running late I wonder? I sat munching on my croissant and sipping on my coffee surrounded by other early morning travellers – including quite a few families – screaming babies and miserable looking children. Are these families actually going to enjoy their holidays? The children look like they don’t want to be there and the parents don’t look like they want them there. The lengths the parents go to in an attempt to keep the children quiet – the magazine, the toy, the drink, the food. And still they all sit looking miserable – it’s a holiday – smile!
As it goes we were late taking off. I don’t suppose the long bus trip from the gate to the aircraft helped. And that was after we’d walked half way across London to get to the gate. It made me smile to see signs saying leave 10 minutes to get to gates 10 to 30, 15 minutes to get to gates 31 to 60 and 20 minutes to get to gates 61 to 97 – I can walk a mile in 20 minutes!! But it really did take 15 minutes to get to the gate and then add on the bus trip, either they had us going round in circles or Gatwick airport stretches the whole of London!
At 8h30 we finally took off arriving in Vienna 1 hour 45 minutes later. After coming out of the airport I took the bus to the Westbahnhof (train station) which was quite simple to do. I arrived at Westbahnhof at 12h30. According to my direction copied off the hostel’s web site it was a 5 minute walk from the station to the hostel. Although I had no map I did have the written directions which began ‘turn right out of the station’. Simple enough you might think. Until you realise that this particular train station has two exits. What kind of train station has two exits?! After walking round and round and round I found the road I was looking for. From there it was 5 minutes to the hostel. Add on my complete lack of sense of direction and the 15 minutes it took me to get my bearings and find the road I was looking for and it was 13h before I got to the hostel and was given a map.
In the afternoon I decided to head to Schonbrunn – a palace with gardens and a zoo. I spent the afternoon in the zoo deciding that the palace and gardens would have to wait until the following day. I really enjoyed the zoo, particularly the hippos. It would turn out to be the highlight of Vienna and maybe the whole of Austria too.
I arrived at Gatwick just before 6h and was confronted with an enormous check in queue. I had actually checked in on line – ‘to save time at the airport’ as Easy jet put it. Trouble is you end up queuing in the same queues as everyone else who had checked in online (it makes the ticket cheaper – you have to pay to check in at the airport these days) as you still have to hand over your suitcase. I stood in the queue for 25 minutes. Why can’t Gatwick be like other airports and have separate queues for each flight rather than lumping everyone together in one massive queue? I made a mental note to myself that it might well be worth paying for so called ‘speedy’ boarding in future, either that or only taking hand luggage. I arrived the other side of the hand baggage security at about 6h40. Breakfast time. Coffee and croissant a la Gatwick, how continental of me. I had 20 minutes until the boarding gate was due to open. Trouble was I had no watch. It’s in for repair. Now you’d think there’d be clocks everywhere in an airport wouldn’t you? But oh no, it tells you that boarding is due to start at 7h but nowhere does it tell you what the actual time is. Is that so you don’t notice as much when things are running late I wonder? I sat munching on my croissant and sipping on my coffee surrounded by other early morning travellers – including quite a few families – screaming babies and miserable looking children. Are these families actually going to enjoy their holidays? The children look like they don’t want to be there and the parents don’t look like they want them there. The lengths the parents go to in an attempt to keep the children quiet – the magazine, the toy, the drink, the food. And still they all sit looking miserable – it’s a holiday – smile!
As it goes we were late taking off. I don’t suppose the long bus trip from the gate to the aircraft helped. And that was after we’d walked half way across London to get to the gate. It made me smile to see signs saying leave 10 minutes to get to gates 10 to 30, 15 minutes to get to gates 31 to 60 and 20 minutes to get to gates 61 to 97 – I can walk a mile in 20 minutes!! But it really did take 15 minutes to get to the gate and then add on the bus trip, either they had us going round in circles or Gatwick airport stretches the whole of London!
At 8h30 we finally took off arriving in Vienna 1 hour 45 minutes later. After coming out of the airport I took the bus to the Westbahnhof (train station) which was quite simple to do. I arrived at Westbahnhof at 12h30. According to my direction copied off the hostel’s web site it was a 5 minute walk from the station to the hostel. Although I had no map I did have the written directions which began ‘turn right out of the station’. Simple enough you might think. Until you realise that this particular train station has two exits. What kind of train station has two exits?! After walking round and round and round I found the road I was looking for. From there it was 5 minutes to the hostel. Add on my complete lack of sense of direction and the 15 minutes it took me to get my bearings and find the road I was looking for and it was 13h before I got to the hostel and was given a map.
In the afternoon I decided to head to Schonbrunn – a palace with gardens and a zoo. I spent the afternoon in the zoo deciding that the palace and gardens would have to wait until the following day. I really enjoyed the zoo, particularly the hippos. It would turn out to be the highlight of Vienna and maybe the whole of Austria too.
