The A-Z’s Of My Favorite Travel Destinations — Austria

En route to the European Peace Walk

In the late spring of 2017, my wife and I flew to Vienna. We were to spend five days there before we left to begin walking from Sopron, Hungary to Trieste, Italy. The idea was to lose our jet lag and enjoy a bit of rest and relaxation before walking more than five hundred kilometres for the European Peace Walk.

We didn’t have many plans for Vienna as we typically leave things to chance. Besides, we would be returning to Austria a few times as we walked along the Hungarian-Austrian border. It only took a few moments in Vienna when we realised we had landed on a treasure chest of possibilities.

We walked through the Stadtpark and soon my camera was in overdrive taking too many photos. While in the park, we saw tickets being sold for a concert the next evening — we love classical music so that was an idea that we just couldn’t pass up. After walking through the park, we found our way through the city to reach Augarten Park as our accommodations were just two blocks from that park. By the time we arrived, we decided to leave that park for the next day. We were tired.

For the next few days, it was a whirlwind of walking through the centre of Vienna. We walk and avoid public transportation as much as possible. One of the highlights for me was visiting Sigmund Freud’s home. The rose gardens in Volksgarten Park were my wife’s favourite place to visit. She is all about roses.

We finally got around to walking all the paths of Augarten Park. In the park, there was one structure that reminded us of just why were in Vienna, Austria. The painted “War No More” was sobering.

On the last afternoon, we finally took a longish trip using public transportation as we were going to spend several hours at the Wien Thermal Spa. The saunas, hot pools, and cooling-off pools were just what we needed. We were finally going to experience a European thermal spa, like a European. Yes, that meant au naturel like the Viennese.