October 13, 2021
In Vienna
Our last day in Austria
We could hardly justify a hotel breakfast buffet when we knew that there would be zero kilometres completed on the bikes today! So we did not tempt ourselves and instead stuck with the Billa bananas and yogurt diet.
We were both feeling a bit anxious about receiving our PCR test results. We have no reason to believe that we could have possibly contracted covid but we know so little about the illness and for some people it has been said there are no symptoms. The thought of having to quarantine in a hotel somewhere while dealing with a (hopefully) mild asymptomatic case was a little unnerving.
Although the test results can be sent by text message, we never did get our Austrian eety sim card working correctly. We suspect that this is likely more a comment on our mono-linguistic abilities and our lack of "cell phone savvy" than an eety issue. In any case, we are both old school and like to have paper copies of important documents; so we elected to go back to the testing center to pick up the test results. This just adds to the overall excitement, at no extra cost!
We decided to head over to the testing site around noon, well before the time the results were to be available. Our bike friday suitcases are also nearby at Boutiquehotel Statdhalle where we left them at the start of our trip and they needed to be retrieved. For some reason the cost to stay there on our return to Vienna was much more expensive than when we we were there a month ago. Supply and demand we suspect. Instead we picked another nice hotel nearby. We enjoyed staying in the Mariahilf area of Vienna's 6th municipal district. It has good access from the airport to Westbahnhof, good nearby shopping and great neighbourhood style restaurants.
We arrived at the covid testing station and walked up to the open window where we had been the previous evening. Upon presenting Pat's identification we were told the test results were ready .........negative she was told as a copy of the results was handed to her. Scott next........negative also!! Done and what a relief! We hugged each other knowing we could check another box on the ArriveCan app and were now clear to return to Canada.
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Aside from completing the rest of the exit to-do list, the day was spent wandering the streets of our neighbourhood, enjoying our remaining time in Vienna.
We planned to have our celebratory end of tour dinner at a restaurant that we had enjoyed on our last trip to Vienna. We did not even think that a reservation would be required but when we entered Steman, a popular local Mariahilf restaurant, it was full. Unfortunately, it had been raining part of the day so the outdoor seating was not being used.
There are lots of restaurants in this area so we went up the block and looked in the window of a small restaurant with a very limited number of tables inside. We decided to give Thanos Taverna - a hole in the wall restaurant specializing in homemade Greek food a try. Pat had the vegetarian lasagna and Scott raved about his perfectly spiced not at all greasy moussaka. The waiter said that his mama was the chef. Now you know it has to be good!
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We are ready. Tomorrow we will be flying home.
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Glad you’re green, have a safe flight home!
3 years ago
3 years ago