Vienna, Budapest and Salzburg

Christmas on the Danube

Day 8: Vienna and Budapest

We spent Christmas day walking around Vienna with the occasional raindrop. It is such a beautiful city full of history and great architecture. We saw everything from the new train station to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, Schönbrunn Palace, Christmas Market at the Rathaus, the Danube, and enjoyed a real Wiener Schnitzel in Prater amusement park. Due to being Christmas day, a lot of places were closed.

Budapest

We left for Budapest mid-afternoon and arrived in the late afternoon at Budapest Keleti station. Exiting the train you are welcomed by old-world charm and classic European train station. We still had a lot of Polish Zloty left and went to the currency exchange counter. That is where we experienced the first tourist hassle. There were individuals trying to change the currency at about 40-50% higher than the currency exchange office offered. Something seemed fishy and I ignored the temptation for a better rate. I exchanged the money at the counter and headed for the taxi stand for a ride to our apartments.

Great Deal on Lodging

We were able to get two apartments for 4 people for under $60. Upon check-in, we realized that the apartments could handle up to 8 people each. The apartments had everything but pillows for guest 3-8. Unfortunately, we had to take the two apartments vs one. It was still very reasonable for both, not the end of the world.

We cleaned up and headed out on foot to see the town. It was a very foggy night, but it played well with the old architecture in the city. We walked to the Danube then through the Christmas Market and to the Chain Bridge over the Danube. We found a small café in the city center to have dinner and we relaxed for a while as it had been a long day with about 12-15 miles of walking. Headed back to our apartments for the night and planned our day in Budapest the next day. We enjoyed our Christmas on the Danube, I wished the weather would have been better in Budapest though.

Day 9: Budapest to Munich via Salzburg

We woke up early and it was raining, this did not work well with our schedule.  So we grabbed our Eurail passes and headed west to Salzburg. Salzburg is a beautiful city that you could visit any time of the year and enjoy yourself. We visited the old town area near Mozart’s birthplace through the Christmas Market up to Hohensalzburg Castle. The views are fantastic from the castle from the Alps to the city. A small snack was in order, the Christmas Market was the perfect answer for some local favorites. The hotel options were limited in Salzburg, so we set our sights for Munich.

We had a friend in Munich that we were staying with for a couple of nights, sent them a message that we were on the way. They knew we would be there that night or the next day, it wasn’t a panic moment for them, or didn’t appear to be an issue.