Budapest, Hungary to Austria, Vienna, just around the corner, only a 3 hour ride. Fine and cool with blue skies and being in the Schengen area now no border crossing to worry about  today or so I thought hahaha, think again this was the worst one so far. As I neared the border I saw a queue of cars a long way from the border and I thought No, No, No, “an accident” up ahead, this is going to take ages because they won’t let anyone through until the debris has been cleared. Anyway I did my usual and slowly filtered through the traffic, down the emergency lane and when that ended, through the middle until I got to the front and discovered the Austrian authorities had setup a temporary border and were checking cars and pulling some over for further scrutiny. If you are in a car be prepared for long delays, I was told later that this has been going on for a while. The Police ignored me as I rode past taking a picture of them. Lesson – motorcycles are good for crossing borders but useless when it comes to protecting you from bee stings hahaha.

Immediately you cross the border there is a Shell service station, stop here and buy your Vignette, 10 days for a motorcycle cost 5.20 euro. I tried to buy the Vignette online but for some weird reason it can only  be done 3 weeks in advance.

First thing I did was buy a one week pass for the public transport which consists of trains, trams and busses, cost 17.10 euro and for some reason it is a Monday to Sunday ticket only (Quote – Valid for unlimited travel in Vienna within the specified calendar week Mon-Sun. This is not a 7-day ticket!). This worked perfectly for me as I arrived on a Sunday, not so good if you arrive mid-week but there are other options. The ticket machines at the stations speak English.

The fuel consumption on my bike has increased by 10-15% and I am hoping it is due to the air filter getting clogged. So I found a Bike shop and ordered a new air filter and they gave me the bolt I needed for the chain guard free, in fact they gave me 2 sizes just in case.   Bike City gets a thumbs up from me. After that I walked to the nearby Technical Museum, I find these museums fascinating and never miss the opportunity to visit them. This place is huge and had a cafe with very reasonable prices. Entry 13 euro and lunch 6.40 euro, I spent about 3 hours looking around the 3 floors of exhibits.