Day 12-Vienna-Frankfurt-Brussels-London

We got up at around 3.30am in order to be driven from Krems to Vienna to catch our train.

From Vienna we got off at Frankfurt and had to get another train to Brussels.

We were catching the Eurostar from Brussels to London.

Brussels was a very busy station and there were army guys wondering around with really big guns which was a bit scary!

We thought we had enough time to eat dinner before we got on the train, but we soon discovered that we should have allowed more time!

We had to go through Brussels security, then we had to go through the UK security. While the UK security guys were checking our passports they casually say ‘oh you have 5mins before the Eurostar leaves!

So we had to hoof it, with our luggage and only just caught the Eurostar in time! And all I can say was that it was not a very pleasant experience! They pack you in like sardines! There was barely any space between the seats and it was so damn hot!

We arrived in London, finally, at St Pancreas station. We made our way out of St Pancreas and across to Kings Cross station a short walk away. We then had to figure out how to purchase an Oyster card (similar to an Opal card for those of you in Sydney).

So off Silvia & I go to purchase the cards and what happens? I put a 50 pound note into the machine to pay for the cards, not reading the front of the machine which says that you can’t use 50 pound notes! The machine promptly shuts down and we have to wait for someone to come and give us our money back.

Our hotel was in Soho, so we had to make our way to Leicester Square station (appropriate and not hard to forget!).

Big problem, most of the stations have stairs, they are not really made for people carrying suitcases. Lets just say that by the time we made it to the hotel we were exhausted.

This was our our cubby house hotel room: