Christmas Market Madness: Austria (Vienna)

As you might expect, most of my travel “adventures” took place on my international Christmas market trips. All issues aside, it was fun to see the holiday sights in different countries this year. 

First stop: Vienna, Austria.

Getting there: 5.5 hours each way, Flixbus (including one 20-minute stop on the way to pick up a relief driver, and 2-3 stops after the passport check on the return). 

I took the subway from the bus station and back.

The market: The Spittelbergermarkt in Vienna was the first one I visited this season—open days before the other markets in Vienna, and a week before the markets here in Munich and environs.

It had a nice village feel, set in an older part of the city and winding along three adjacent alleys. 

It was pretty close in terms of wares and food to the German markets, but there were some outliers in the realm of birdhouses, funky jewelry and pottery stalls, and a brilliant ugly Christmas sweater stall.

There were also a handful of stalls on an adjacent street, no doubt looking to cash in on the crowd draw. It certainly worked on me—I found a lovely Polish lacework stocking stuffer for my mother at one.

The trip: The driver from Munich seemed more concerned with looking cool while smoking by the bus, so it took me two passes to confirm that he was, in fact, the driver. It wasn’t until after he’d scanned my ticket code and I boarded that I realized he never asked to see/confirm my passport.

I’ve traveled with FlixBus several times before, so I knew there would be mostly reliable WiFi onboard, and was lucky enough to snag the seats behind the rear door, because there’s a USB charging slot in the wall there.

The trip out was uneventful, although the Vienna bus depot is by far the sketchiest one I’ve been to so far. Thankfully the subway was only a block away.

 

When in Wien, go for the Wienerschnitzel!

I knew I’d be getting in about 90 minutes before the market opened, and, in fact, had planned it out. 

I stopped a couple of stations short so I could have lunch at the Ratskeller, craving the Wienerschnitzel my family had there last year during our river cruise. Then I walked through the museum quarter and made my way to Spittelberg.

On the way back to the bus station, I decided to walk rather than take a connecting train, and stopped to get some treats in a familiar part of the city. 

When I went to check my phone for the closest subway station, I found the cold had drained the battery (unfortunately, a recurring scenario on these trips). Once I charged my phone from my backup battery pack I was on my way, but that hiccup was only a precursor to a stressful overall return journey. 

Two minutes after we were supposed to have left, a family of five appeared and clambered onto the bus. Since there were no seats left together, they stood in the aisle for a while (while we were moving) before dispersing.

The second-youngest daughter was deposited next to me. I was relieved at first when she finally fell asleep after playing a couple of Armenian rap videos over and over again on a cellphone (no headphones).

 

Yeah, I was not this Zen about my hanger-on

But soon it became apparent that 1) she snored and 2) she was having an endless series of nightmares. She kept moaning and half-waking-up and clinging to me. 

While I was pressing myself against the window and silently cursing her parents for not checking on her, we pulled into a random train station in some tiny town for a passport check (there wasn’t one on the way into Austria, mind you).

I prepared myself for the questions I've gotten in the past (You live in Germany? How long? Do you speak German?), but the officers appeared to have bigger fish to fry. After haranguing the father of the aforementioned family, the officers seized their passports and, it appeared, the passports of the other eastern Europeans on the bus, and wandered away.

We waited about 25 minutes before they returned. No one was questioned further or removed from the bus, so we were once again underway. By the time we reached Munich, I was so happy to be home, I climbed quickly over the still-snoring child next to me and lost a pair of gloves in my haste to get off the bus.

Upon reflection: The market was worth the trip experience (good and bad), but if I had it to do over again, I would have tempered my out of-the-gate enthusiasm and planned my trip a bit later. A couple of the other markets I passed on my way through the city looked promising in terms of size and potential atmosphere. Lesson for next year!

Tomorrow: My trip to the “Capital of Christmas…”