Arriving In Vienna Via Munich
It was a smooth and fairly uneventful flight for the remainder of the trip. About an hour out of Munich we were served a light breakfast of Greek yogurt and a poundcake-like thing, plus coffee/tea.
We arrived in Munich right on time at 9:35AM. We deplaned and went through Customs without issue. Passing through security screening we had to remove cameras etc. from carry-on. We proceeded to our gate and waited for the connecting flight to Vienna. An overly-friendly, annoying American guy – verging on a stereotype – from Charlotte, NC was chatting us up. We boarded Lufthansa flight AC9220 at 11:00AM and departed right on time at 11:25. IT was a pleasant and short (45 minute) flight from Munich to Vienna.
We landed OK in Vienna, deplaned, retrieved luggage, and found the driver from the Guse cab company waiting for us, waving a sign with my name on it (the manager of our Vienna apartment-hotel had arranged pickup service for us at the airport). Very nice woman driver! She didn’t speak much English but she was very helpful, pleasant and polite. The driver took us to the Airport Driver booth where we retrieved our Vienna passes. We proceeded to the van in the parking garage, and our driver drove us through the city (pointing out some highlights) and on to Appartements Ferchergasse. Total cost of the airport transfer: €32 + €8 tip.
Arriving At Appartements Ferchergasse
We checked in and met the Owner/Manager of the complex, Christian Rank, who showed us Apartment #8, our home for the next two weeks. Christian explained the policies etc., and provided us with maps of the city and general area.
Vince and I were very tired but our first task had to be the gathering of some groceries for the apartment. We found our way to Hofer, an Austrian supermarket (think Loblaws, Safeway, etc.) around the corner on Hernalser Hauptstrasse, and loaded up with some basics. We made our back to the apartment and put the groceries away. At that point we found ourselves absolutely exhausted so we laid down for about an hour, then unpacked our suitcases.
Feeling a little bit refreshed, we set out to explore the neighbourhood and get acquitted with the Hernals U-Bahn station, where we to later buy our transit tickets. In this trip’s blog I will refer regularly to Hernals – this is the District (#17) of Vienna in which we were staying. It was time to eat, so we wound up at Restaurant Apollon on Hernalser Hauptstrasse; there we had a fantastic Greek meal with enormous portions! We couldn’t finish it all so we brought the remainder back to the apartment.
We tried our best to stay up until 9:00PM but couldn’t make it! We turned in at about 8:40, completely exhausted. It’s the end of a very big day but at least we’re at our destination and, after a good sleep, ready to take on Vienna!
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