Austria, Germany, China 2013: Part 4 – 9 Hours in Vienna

This is part 4 of a series on my trip to Austria, Germany and China.

I received 40,000 of the 100,000 miles I used for this award ticket by getting the US Airways® Premier World MasterCard®!  This is a great card and one I still carry.  These miles will eventually become American miles which are some of the most valuable.  Click here to apply now for one of your own!

Since you can have layovers of <24 hours for free we built in a 9 hour layover in Vienna and ended up meeting with a friend from Austria as a local tour guide!  We arrived in the Vienna airport and made our way to the train to the city center.  They had a neat flight status wall as you exited from immigration.20140417-123932.jpg

After we arrived at the city center our first stop was University of Vienna which was established in the 1500s!  It was a beautiful classically European campus.20140417-123951.jpg

Here we are with our host Nina who had come in from Salzburg where she lives to give us a tour.20140417-124359.jpg

The library reminded me of Hogwarts from the Harry Potter movies!20140417-124209.jpg

We did mainly a walking tour of Vienna checking out the beautiful architecture.20140417-124243.jpg 20140417-124425.jpg 20140417-124444.jpg

We ate a traditional Austrian lunch of schnitzel and some Austrian beers and then wandered around a bit more.20140417-124526.jpg 20140417-124505.jpg 20140417-124552.jpg

But then it was time to head back to the airport to catch our flight to Frankfurt. I think 9 hours was a bit tight and we were a bit rushed so a little longer layover next time would be preferred.  Now that I have spent a little time in Vienna, I do think I would like to go back for a more extended trip.  Since they are the hub for the very nice Austrian Airlines, it isn’t a bad spot to transit through either!  Next stop… Timewarp!

Author: John Butler

I live in Miami Beach but love travelling all over the world.