It's getting colder

 5^th December : Vienna

Lunch stop in Wachau Valley

As we drove out of Salzburg we realised that more snow had fallen.  We wanted to take the scenic route around Mondsee and Achensee and we did manage this although I think Mike was glad to get back onto the motorway.  We had also realised that we were getting low on gas and we had not realised that LPG was difficult to get in Austria.  We decided to get a cylinder of camping gas to keep us going but then found that difficult to obtain too despite the numerous camping sites in the area. We continued watching garages for LPG on the motorway but came off after Linz so that we could pick up another scenic route through the Wachau valley which follows the River Danube.   The weather had improved and we were able to stop for lunch on the roadside in the sunshine surrounded by orchards and grape vines.  We arrived in Vienna in the early evening.  I cooked supper but then the gas ran out which meant that we had no heating and it was zero degrees outside.  We fortunately had internet access at the campsite so we searched the internet for LPG suppliers and after a long search found one supplier about 16km away.

 6th December

We woke to find more snow.  Getting gas was imperative.  We set off using our sat nav only to be disappointed when we reached the garage to find they no longer stocked LPG (well they had it in cylinders but not for refillable ones).  Back to the drawing board and another trip to use McDonalds free wifi.  After another long search we found another potential supplier a further 10km away.  We drove there not feeling very hopeful but were pleasantly surprised to find that indeed they had some.  Interestingly our German adaptor to fit the nozzle to our tank would not work and we had to use our Spanish one (but at least we do have a variety to try).  By now it was lunchtime and we decided to use our own park and ride version again.  We drove reasonably close to the centre (about 5km) away, found a free parking place and got on our bikes.  Driving around the outskirts of Vienna had not prepared me for the centre.  I was wowed by it.  There were street after street of really grand buildings.  We locked our bikes near the cathedral and headed for its tower so that we could get a panoramic view of the city and get our bearings.

It was snowing quite heavily as we walked around the Hofberg, home of the Imperial Palace, the Spanish riding School and other state treasures.  We continued onto the Rathous which looked fabulous.  The whole area had been beautifully lit with the Christmas market in front.  All of the trees were heavily decorated with hearts, hot air balloons, owls etc.  It must have been enchanting for the children.  The snow continued to fall and it was now dark so we headed back to our van which had come to no harm whilst we were  then drove back to the campsite where we were very pleased to turn on our new gas supply.

7th December

The following day we had to get up early to get to the Spanish Riding School to see the morning training session of the Lippizaners.  We decided that we take the tube in to the centre today as our campsite was a bit too far out (and it was very cold). We spent 2.5 hours watching these beautiful horses being schooled and I couldn’t stop thinking about Louise and poor Swift. You could see that it took hours and hours of training of both riders and horses to achieve what they did.  Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos of the horses although I though a bit of flash photography would add to their training.  We followed our experience here with a welcome cup of hot chocolate for me anf a beer for Mike and then felt ready to tackle some more sightseeing.  We started off with a visit to part of the palace that housed the imperial treasures which turned out to be a rather dull experience and then we went back to the town hall where we were able to listen to choirs from Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Vienna sing festive music.  It was a pleasant way to end the day. However when we got back to the van we found that it had dropped its water – this is a safety feature to prevent pipes bursting when it goes below freezing.  This had to be sorted so that we could get the boiler refilled and heated so it was 10pm before I could start cooking supper and midnight before we went to bed.