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Saturday, August 17th - Maria Gugging to Vienna, 9043 km
I am tired and achy this morning as I limp down the stairs to the dining room in small hotel in Maria Gugging for the continental breakfast they serve. I am paying the price for my record-setting exertion yesterday, but it is not as bad as I expected. I have a very short ride, less than 20 km, planned for today to take me into Vienna, but I take the time to stretch and limber out my muscles before I set out. I didn't do this when I arrived in Paris after long days of cycling and with all the walking I did I pulled the Achilles tendons on both of my feet.
The skies have cleared overnight and it is a beautiful morning. When the 10:30 check out time comes around I set out along the radweg to Vienna. The path hugs the Danube around the base of the 400 m hill at Leopoldsberg that separates the suburb of Klosterneuberg from Vienna itself. About five kilometres from the centre, the Donaukanal (Danube Canal) leads inland through the heart of Vienna to the west of the river, and the bike path follows it. It is set down by the water, below the street level. When I determine that I am at the city centre I leave the path to join the city streets.
I find the tourism office in a main square in the city centre opposite St. Stephens Cathedral. The woman at the counter supplies me with maps, accommodation suggestions and brochures of attractions. Her warm and friendly response is not typical of Austrians, who generally have no use for tourists or anyone who is from somewhere else. In fact, I am not sure if they have any use for each other either. They are the coldest people I have ever encountered. The friendliness on this woman's face slams shut as soon as she has answered my questions. It is only her service façade.
I find the nearest hostel and leaves my bike and bags at the reception. Registration will be at 6 pm. It is not even 1 pm so the whole afternoon is mine and it is a perfect day for strolling around. I first set out to do a little grocery and map shopping. To my amazement, all stores in Vienna, including most grocery and souvenir stores, close for the 
weekend on Saturday at noon. That must play havoc with weekend visitors, but as I said, people from Vienna (Weiners) have no use for outsiders. It is amusing that Toronto, obsessed with becoming a "world-class" city, has introduced Sunday shopping to be more like European cities.
There is plenty to see and do even though the stores are closed tight. I return to the square where I began to see St Stephens Cathedral with its massive, moss-covered roof. I pass by the university, the city hall and the Hapsburg palaces. The architecture is uniformly grandiose, intended reflect the power of the state and to belittle and intimidate those who 
look upon it. In short, it is fascist (small 'f') style from the days of the Hapsburg (Austro-Hungarian) Empire. There is lots of sculpture, classic and modern. It is the modern ones that fascinate me, because they are so out of keeping with most of Vienna, which is rooted in its 19th century past - the peak of its power and the time of Strauss waltzes.
Around 5:30 I return to the hostel to wait in a queue to check in. The process is predictably officious and efficient. A couple of the staff, the ones with foreign accents, are friendly and make the service warmer. It is a large hostel with probably a couple hundred beds. I am in a small dorm with three others, an American, a German and someone Dutch I believe. Their bags are here but they are not.
I seek out an Italian restaurant a couple blocks away and have a leisurely meal alone. Afterwards, I contact Robert Boyer, a SERVAS host in town who is willing to put me up tomorrow night. It has been a couple days since I have talked with anyone socially, that being at the gay bar in Linz, so I want to go somewhere I can meet people. I don't feel like watching German-language TV in the hostel lounge so I look up gay bars in my Spartacus Guide. The one with the biggest ad is called Why Not. It's walking distance away so I choose to go there.
It seems the name Why Not is more of an explanation than a rhetorical question. It is dead for a gay bar on Saturday evening. It is only 10 pm but there should be more than the a dozen or so people that are here. It is a pub more than a dance bar. I take a seat at a table a couple metres from the bar. There are three men at the bar, my age or perhaps a couple years younger. They check me out to see who has arrived and make eye contact with me. I nod and smile at them. They turn away without either with smiles or words in return. Their reaction feels a bit hostile to me, though it is nothing out of the ordinary here. I wonder if they suspect I am a foreigner.
The waiter comes by and I order a Pilsner beer. "He's English" one of the three at the bar says to the other two in English, loud enough for me to hear him clearly. He says it as though he is speaking about an object, not a person. It might be his way of letting me know they all speak English but are uninterested in speaking to me, only about me. I no longer want to meet them but I sit there for another hour hoping others will show up. They do, but they just as unfriendly and disrespectful as the men at the bar so I return to the hostel to get some rest.
PHOTO 1: Maria Gubbing Kirche
PHOTO 2: the bike path into Vienna
PHOTO 3: interesting graffiti on support to elevated highway
PHOTO 4: street in the centre
PHOTO 5: partially unsculptured block
PHOTO 6: Karlsplatz
PHOTO 7: St Stephen's Cathedral
PHOTO 8: Parliament Buildings and buggy
PHOTO 9: Vienna Rathaus
PHOTO 10: Hapsburg Palace
PHOTO 11: someone's having a bad day
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