Trip to Vienna

Thought I would write a few words on the recent trip to Vienna, where I now am after arriving earlier this afternoon.  It's extremely cold and snowy here but we have been promised by a reliable bell boy that it will warm up later this week.

We left four days ago and had a good albeit long first day driving.  Terrible driving conditions on the way to the tunnel but much nicer once in France and a relatively quick journey down to a little village called Vertus, just south of Reims and in the champagne region.  Nice hotel but not quite as good as we had remembered from last year.  Still a comfy room but a bit overpriced, and although the meal was nice I was a bit disappointed to see the menu was completely unchanged.  Still good to have some local champagne however.

The next day was again grey and cold but we left soon after breakfast and drove into Germany.  Not such a long day and we had again booked our place in advance so a fairly stress free drive to Speyer.  Again a comfy hotel and a very nice meal,  despite some language issues.

The following morning, after an excellent breakfast - by which I mean a choice of hams and real cheese as opposed to the plastic sliced stuff - we left the hotel in yet another grey and cold day.  The picnics we have had in previous years seem a very long way away.  Drove through Germany and started looking for a hotel around 4pm.  This proved slightly harder than expected - the plan, as always, was to leave the motorway and drive along smaller country roads in the hope of coming across somewhere in various towns and villages.  However many of the places we found were either shut or grim or both, and although we drove around a couple of old looking towns none of the hotels  or guest houses seemed very appealing.  We drove on to a slightly larger town called Passau, just on the crossing of the Danube, the Inn and another river which I forget.  We had stayed here before several years ago,  but the problem again with this place was a real lack of parking given the narrow cobbled streets.  Eventually we abandoned, crossed the river and climbed a scarily steep mountain road.  Quite by chance we came across am amazing hotel that used to be a castle and which sat quite literally on the border between Germany and Austria.  Amazing place with high ceilings and comfy albeit cold rooms, and we had an excellent meal in the restaurant.

The following morning, today, again after a very good breakfast we left the hotel and completed our journey to Vienna.  Really very obvious that there was much more snow than any previous year and was much more like driving through the alps than our usual journey.  Stopping at our usual picnic site just outside Vienna was quite different from last year,  when sunglasses were needed instead if being surrounded by snow.

Arrived in Vienna as planned and now relaxing in hotel before the conference starts.  Will probably post another message upon my return...