Aufwiedersehn Hallstatt

With a heavy heart and a lighter wallet we left the amazingly beautiful village of Hallstatt.   

Cruising across the lake to the train station there were many sad people.

Even as touristy as it is Hallstatt is the kind of place you want to return to.   

After a running train switch at Attnang-Puchheim we were on an ICE train to Vienna.   The scenery is flatter and a lot less pretty and iconic as the one from Salzburg to Hallstatt was.   Eventually finding our way out of the sprawling Wien Westbahnhof we took a pleasant 15 minute walk through an older area of Vienna to arrive at the Rosa Linde B&B.  We knew it was on the 2nd floor of what we found to be a non-descript and not overly appealing building.   Gaining entrance we were greeted with a spiral staircase encircling a very old-fashioned birdcage elevator.   Finally finding the correct door to the B&B we opened it and stepped in to another world.  The lobby was bright and modern and as far as we could see uninhabited.  We tried to gain entrance to our room and failed.  Doing further investigation I found a young guy working in an office.  I told him who we were and he immediately sprung into action.  After taking care of all the formalities he took us down to our suite "the Freud".   You open the door and our breaths were taken away.  It was absolutely lovely - 12 foot ceilings, parquet floors, huge tall windows and even a chandelier.  The bathroom is very modern and tasteful as are the furnishings.  This place is amazing.

Franz, our host, took about 20 minutes to outline the highlights of Vienna for us including a few good places to eat.   We headed to the old town.  A bonus of our hotel is that you can walk to the old town. Spending a couple of hours just wandering and craning our necks looking at the sights, we discovered that we were both hungry as we had missed our daily strudel and beer ritual which has become our lunch.  We headed to the Plachuttas Gasthaus (recommended by Franz) for an authentic Austrian dinner.  And for the first time on this trip actual vegetables, if you don't count sauerkraut as a vegetable.   Ambled back to our flat.