Slovenia, Austria: Part 13 - Day 14: Dorotheum auction house, train from Vienna to Berlin

Here is a summary of what is spent on Day 14.

5/8 Day 14: Dorotheum auction house, Stadtpark (city park). Overnight train from Vienna (22:10 hours) to Berlin (arrived 08:15 hours).

Costs

(1) Locker at Wien Hbf - EUR2,50 (shared)

(2) Ticket for overnight ÖBB train to Berlin - EUR109,90

Food

(1) Breakfast at Meidlinger Markt - Breakfast set EUR15,20

(2) Spar grocery store - Waffle Manner Mignon 400g EUR3,99, Manner Mozart Mignon 400g EUR3,99

(3) Fika at Cafe Dorothea - Cappucino EUR4,80, Topfenstrudel (cream cheese strudel) EUR4,40

(4) Sagt restaurant (Biergarten) in the city park - Pink guava drink 500ml EUR4,90 

(5) Dinner - Chicken Kebab EUR4,50

The Story

05082024 : Today, we will take the overnight train from Vienna to Berlin and the following day, we will take the overnight train from Berlin to Stockholm. When we agreed to this plan, we thought it would be great to sleep on the train and we have the whole day to explore the town. But it would have been sufficient to have one night on the train rather than two nights as I would like to change my underclothes. 

First, breakfast! A friend tipped us to visit a market near our accommodation. I planned a market visit but it was further and on the way to the train station. So, we decided to go to the market near us at Meidlinger Markt. We stopped at a random cafe that was opened at 8am and had a huge breakfast set for a cheaper price than we had at the coffee house Cafe Museum yesterday! 

Here is a collage I did for both places, as I was appalled by the price in Cafe Museum and I got only one part of the breakfast that I had in the market.

We checked out from the Airbnb and headed towards the train station to store our luggages in the locker. There is a giant clock on the building and you can see that we arrived at 11.30am. It started to rain shortly. Unfortunately, our lockers were occupied! It was a huge storage room. We went to the information counter and asked where we could store our luggages. They suggested hotels that were outside the train station. We went to Novotel first but their storage was full and they accept only bookings for storage for non-guests. They recommended Bounce app and suggested we go to Ibis Hotel which was next door. We went there and they were full in the storage too, and suggested to check Bounce app. It was raining heavily so we decided to wait in Ibis Hotel.

We decided to go back to the train station to try our luck. We were lucky! A customer was taking out her luggage and we took her spot.

It was still pouring. My friends were hungry and we crossed the street to have lunch at a sausage stall.

This is a local meal - sausages chopped into pieces and eaten with shredded horseradish and mustard and a pretzel.

After lunch, we went to Dorotheum auction house. It is free entry. The guide that we went for the walking tour recommended this place as there are many art pieces. I thought I could see an auction but there was none for the day. It was very warm in the auction house. Everything inside is so expensive!

The air was very stuffy in the building. I wondered if this has anything to do with the items in the auction house that the humidity and temperature need to be maintained at a certain temperature. We decided to have a fika break here and planned where we should go next. The three of us shared a cream cheese strudel - well, I ate most of it as I was the one who placed the order but I let the other two tried a bite. My cappucino is with whipped cream. 

It was raining when we stepped out from Dorotheum. Despite the rain, we decided to go to Stadtpark (the city park). I am not a fan of rain so I am thankful I have my poncho. 

Some trees caught my attention - the way how the branches stood out, I suspected the other branches were chopped off and the ones at the bottom were kept.

I did not know of this musician until I came to Vienna. I am not into music. This is Johann Strauss, a very famous musician among musically-inclined folk.

Johann Strauss II lived from 1825 to 1899. He is considered the waltz king par excellence because of his focus on ballroom music. He also wrote the music for operettas that are still performed today, including “Die Fledermaus” and “Der Zigeunerbaron”. Source from Wien Info.

We took a break at a Biergarten in the city park, and I had a pink guava drink which did not taste like guava at all. 

Along the way to our dinner spot, we passed by a botanical garden. Sad that we did not know of this earlier as there were interesting plants in the botanical garden! I needed to pee so I used the toilet in the garden and wasted 5 minutes as we entered 15 minutes before closing time at 6pm. If I find myself in Vienna, I will definitely visit this place!

Our dinner place is a kebab restaurant. Really good kebab! There were many customers that bought take-away as there are not many places in the restaurant.

Back at the train station. Our train arrived as scheduled at 10.10pm. Our sleeping compartment has 5 sleeping places but there were 4 of us only so there is extra space in the compartment. We had a fun train attendant. He said that it is great to be funny so everyone will have fun in the trip.