Tired, despite our full night's sleep. Travelling seems to be making us continually jaded, especially in the morning, when Iain would be anyway. We eventually drag ourselves up, having decided that whilst Vienna is pretty, it doesn't have enough to sustain our interest for long. Great if you're into cathedrals, castles and churches, but not for us. We get a tram into the centre, stopping at the Opera House for the Tourist Office. It all reminds me of Bath, in England, where all the buildings look aesthetically pleasing but identical and not much else. We get bored and hungry. We look for somewhere to eat and decide we'll have to starve for two days as we can't afford it. We start at a sandwich shop, where they sell open sandwiches, which are about 4cm square, for £1 each. It's a fashionable place, being where Kafka used to eat, apparently. Must have been rich. Everyone there is eating about ten pounds worth of food, and they don't even provide seats. Boh. We finally settle on an Italian, where pizza is "only" £5. We can't even afford drink but we finally concede with water. We're running out of water to carry round and it's a quid for half a litre, but we find a supermarket (hurrah!) and stock up on food and drink, wondering if this is the only cheap place in Austria.

[The Vienna State Opera.]

We take a tour of the Opera House, rather than see an opera more cheaply (stand up tickets are available from a pound, if you can face going). It's all very opulent but a bit dull, probably like the people who go there. The Emperor had a huge box and intermission room, which can now be hired out for a mere grand. The tour group is full of stupid people, particularly a German girl, who asks a myriad silly questions like (pointing at paintings of famous singers) "Did these singers dance too?". We walk to St Stephen's cathedral, with the intention of taking an English tour, and going up the tower. We decide against this once we find out how much it costs. To do all the stuff there would be £6 each, so we settle for walking around whining about it. We spot some English

[Stephensdom - cathedral in Vienna]

pensioners talking about going to Budapest. We try to sell them some currency, but they run away. We sell most remaining currency, some illegally, to random travellers throughout the holiday. Interesting fact: everyone in Vienna is old.

We walk around the grounds of the Hofburg Palace and decide to take the metro to the amusement park out of town where there's a famous big wheel. We're very impressed to find it's £2.50 each, and decide to ignore it on principle. We walk around in case there's a cheap ride they forgot to overprice. There isn't, but we do get some candy floss. Well, I get some, on the premise that Iain doesn't like it and won't nick it, but he changes his mind. We find lots of high tech, funky rides, including a worrying version of Alton Towers' Rameses Revenge, which adds another dimension by swinging the cradle diagonally too. Pissed off with Austrian prices, but nonetheless impressed with the technology of the rides, we return to the centre and get the tram back, just as it chucks down with rain.

We have a phone-fest, trying to book accommodation through to the end of the holiday. It gets communal as someone comes to borrow the phone card - an American who's been travelling for six months and hasn't phoned home once. Some others arrive as we're in the corridor talking to the American, and we chat about our journeys. Soon enough the huge map is out on the floor, with half a dozen of us perched around it. This is about the most sociable we've been for ages, since we're usually too tired/not in the mood in the evenings to do much, and seem to prefer each others' company at the moment. However, this is nice, and several people join us for a few hours. There's an Australian girl travelling all over (most Australians we meet appear to be doing a year, as do the Canadians), and an English couple who are travelling until the money runs out. They give us directions to a Youth Hostel in Prague. There's also another couple who freak when we tell them about visa costs in Eastern Europe, and disappear to their room to re-organise their entire route to Greece.