Hostel Ruthensteiner - Vienna - Austria

I reached the hostel at 12:30PM. The receptionist told me that my room would be ready only by 2:00 PM. So I asked her if I could store my luggage in the locker room and then come back later in the evening and check in. She was more than happy to get rid of me :) and so she agreed to give me the locker key for a deposit of 10 Euros. I stored my luggage, freshened up, had my lunch (I had taken chapattis with me from London as I had read that it is difficult to find vegetarian restaurants in Austria) and then came to the reception desk to find out about the various sightseeing tour options.


The hostel offered "crawl Vienna" a bicycle trip for 4 hours that was scheduled at 2:30 PM. I was not very keen to ride a bicycle when the temperature was 31 deg C and was sweltering hot. I checked the other options:

1. Grape garden tour -- didn't seem very exciting.

2. Walking tour for 1 1/2 hour to begin at 4:00 PM. I didn't want to wait till then and so I decided to go on my own.

Music Cafe in the hostel

I asked the receptionist to suggest me a few places that I could visit in a day and she replied
"I don't know. Vienna has so much to offer. You can't see anything in one day. I will just mark a couple of places for you on the map and may be you can visit at least a few of them."

Having said that, she took a pen and circled three areas and returned the map to me. The people at Interlaken hostel were friendlier and they went out of their way to help the travelers. This lady seemed to be very rude to the people. I saw her replying curtly to a couple of more people too. It really didn't matter as I was in Vienna for just a day.

The dining area

More about Vienna Trip to follow ...