Europe 2019 - Day 48 (Part 1)

23 June 2019, Sunday

Only 3 hours of sleep. Woke up at 5 a.m. as we had to take the bus at 7 a.m. to Vienna. Had breakfast somewhere near the bus station but I couldn’t eat much as I was having a hangover, still half asleep, head in the clouds and feeling pain all over, but all in a good way. It’s a 5 hour ride to Vienna and I slept the entire journey 😁.

So, a little bit about Austria. Today's Austria is what was once the German speaking core and centre of power for the large multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire with its imperial capital in Vienna. This empire stretched eastwards from present-day Austria through much of east-central and south-central Europe, including the entire territories of modern day Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and portions of Serbia, Romania, Ukraine, Poland and Italy.

The modern republic of Austria came into being in 1918 as a result of its defeat in WW I. In its wake, the empire was split into many components. Following an unresisted invasion and annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938, Austria more or less functioned as a part of Nazi Germany during WW II. Thus, a large proportion of the population supported Hitler and Austria's incorporation into Germany. It was not until the end of the war that the mood changed and Austria tried to distance itself from Germany. 

In 1945, Austria was divided into zones of occupation like Germany. However, unlike Germany, Austria was not subject to any further territorial losses. A treaty signed in 1955 ended the Allied and Soviet occupation, recognized Austria's independence, and forbade future unification with Germany. A constitutional law of that same year declared the country's "perpetual neutrality", a condition for Soviet military withdrawal, and thus saved Austria from Germany's fate of a divided nation with a divided capital.

We arrived in Vienna and went to our hotel which was unfortunately quite far away. It is not cheap to stay in Vienna, and this time I managed to convince my friend to stay in a hotel which was reasonably cheap as it was some distance away from the city centre. For me, I’d rather pay a bit extra and get fresh towels and a hair dryer in a comfortable room, rather than a bed in a dorm.

Anyway, after checking in I was still feeling like a zombie and I think my friend realised that I was off and asked me what happened and I told her the edited version 😁.