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In Vienna, you can find Mozart in every imagination incarnation – keyrings, mousepads, tissues and chocolate balls.  Don’t be surprised if a “Mozart” comes up to you on the streets – most likely they are promoters trying to sell you concerts; be wary of them as most of the time the standard of the concerts are not as high as you expected.

Remember in an earlier post at the Schonbrunn palace souvenir shop where I promised to show you the best place to get your stock of Mirabell Mozart Chocolate Balls?  You should get them from Manner shops in Stephenplatz (its just beside the Stephansdom – look for the pink store).  Here you can get the Mirabell Chocolate Balls by the tonnes if you want as its definitely cheaper than anywhere else in Vienna.

Getting around Vienna is easy with the extensive U-Bahn (Metro-equivalent) and tram systems.  The U-Bahn map is also much easier than the London Tube system.  It is also cheap as we used a 8-Day Ticket (8-Tage-Karte) which can be bought at tobacco shops around Vienna. Why buy a 8-Day ticket when we are only in Vienna for 2 days?

The 8-Day Ticket is valid for 8 days but not necessarily 8 consecutive days.  It just means that there are 8 stripes on this ticket.

You must validate one stripe of this multi-ride ticket per person and day prior to using public transport.  Each strip of the 8-day ticket is valid on the day of validation from 0.00 until 1.00 of the following day.  The number of stripes validated must equal the number of persons using the pass during that day.  The pass is good for unlimited riding in Zone 100 on the day of validation.  i.e. we have 4 persons travelling on the same day thus we validated 4 stripes on the first day.

The most common form of transport we took around Vienna is the trams (known locally as Bim after the sound of their warning bell) which looked like red and white metal caterpillars (see picture above).  Most trams travel in a loop service and return to their original destination so there’s little chance of getting completely lost.  I would suggest that visitors to Vienna take tram 1 and 2 which circle the Innere Stadt in opposite directions along Ringstrasse.  This route provide a glimpse of some of the city’s richest architecture e.g. the Rathaus (City Hall) and Parliament.

Related posts:

1. Public Transport and Money in Budapest – Taxi Scam
2. Grand Tour of Vienna’s Schonbrunn Palace
3. How to Get from Vienna to Cesky Krumlov the Easy and Cheap Way