So we've made it to Vienna. We caught the Zagreb to Frankfurt train from Ljubljana to Villach, and then transferred to a train to Wien Mielding, luckily managing to make the connection in Villach, despite the other train running late. The train ride across Vienna was particularly beautiful. We got to see lots of little town nestled in the valleys surrounded by huge snow capped mountains. We hit a slight problem when checking in here. I book this just the other night as a change from the place that was trying to charge us a third more than the price we'd booked at. As we were booking so late we had to book a couple of different rooms, and some how, I don't even know how I did it, I managed to book one of the rooms one night for only one person. I was getting a little paniked when the girl said they had no space avaliable in the dorms. They did however have a private room avaliable. So we have to pay more, but we still save slightly from the other place. The most annoying thing is that we have to change rooms every night. So combine that with Munich and we change beds every night for the next five nights.
Anyway lets go back to the castle and the old guy. We decided it was about time we saw a castle, so being right there, fairly cheap, and having not a lot to do in Ljubljana, we headed up to the castle on, funnily enough, castle hill. It was very small, but quite nicely set out for tourists. The best part was the tower, which gave you a 360 degree view of the whole city. The city is surrounded by a green belt, theres mountains in all directions. It also has unpopulated hills within the city. It was gorgeous, even on a grey drizzly day.
Upon being unable to find the S gallery, despite following the signs twice, we called it a day at the castle and headed back down the hill and up the river to fill in some times, and give our legs a stretch. We settled by the river to enjoy the sun which had finally appeared and got caught up in conversation. At some point a man walked past, I would estimate him to have been in his mid to late thirties. He asked if the river was the Ljubljanca, by which I mean he pointed and said 'Ljubljanca' we said yes and kept talking. Then he started trying to talk to us. Through his pointing and persistance we found out he spoke german, spanish, slovenian, and presumbaly Italian, as he was Italian. He didn't however speak english. He did however continue to try and make conversation, most of which was him saying things over and over in different languages and us looking confused and him saying 'shit'. After a little to and froing he asked as 'kaffe' and we discovered he was asking as to go and get a coffee with him. A somewhat strange idea considering the language difficulties and our obvious discomfort. We said no, and he asked why. Not one to give up. We of course couldn't really explain, what with us being polite, and not speaking the same language anyway. I eventually turned to Sophie and said it was six o'clock we should go, and turned to him saying we had to leave, pointing away with a sorry expression on my face, hoping he wouldn't take this as us agreeing to go to coffee with him. He didn't thank god, and we left some what bemused.
That brings us to the end of the train section of our journey. When we leave Vienna in a couple of days we'll be back on the busabout bus. And in just over a week we'll be flying out to Dublin. Exciting.
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