Silk Route

Day 77 - Sat 31 May 08

Budapest -> Vienna

Up at 07:00 for breakfast at the hostel, said my goodbyes to the genial host and walked down the tram stop with Alex from the hostel who is also heading for Vienna. Got to the station with stacks of time, find the train and climb aboard. The train is about a half hour late leaving but the time flies as Alex and I chat away. Interestingly there's no sign of a passport check as we enter Austria.

The Vienna sewer!

Arrive at Westbahnhof and say goodbye to Alex, find the lockers and dump my bag for €2. It's pretty warm in Vienna, and I walk down to the agency to collect my ticket for the Third Man Sewer tour. I change $50 into €26 - a very poor rate, but I don't need that much cash so..

I grab a quick bite to eat and then head back to the address on my Third Man Sewer tour ticket, spot that it's actually in the park opposite the address, and the entrance to the sewer is the actual one used in the movie. The tour heads down the circular steps and takes in a couple of places used in the movie, but not the really big one.

Third Man Museum ticket

After that I popped up to the Third Man Museum and saw the actual zither used to play the music used in the film. They have some great exhibits about the film. Then it was a walk back to the station to retrieve my bag. I noticed that there's an OBB club lounge at the station and that my sleeper ticket gets me in! So it's free drinks and snacks. It's quite weird to be back to somewhere I've been before and that's so easy to get around.

On the way back to the station I saw an American girl getting stung for €100 on the old "find the lady game", I told her to chalk it up to experience and walk away else they will have all her euros.

Got to the platform and found that the train has a name 'Orient Express', how ironic is that? This isn't the posh one that goes to Venice, it's the real one that used to do the run to Istanbul. Today it's a shadow of it's former self and does Vienna to Amsterdam. I'm in a six berth couchette and the very top. Looking back there's no way I should have got into that OSS lounge. I watch a movie on my ipod - 'The Third Man' what else?