Travel Destinations

Monday, October 28, 2013

The Austria Trip That Never Happened

You know the saying “all dressed up and nowhere to go?”  I kind of feel that way about our trip to Austria that never happened.  My dream of traveling to Austria began at an early age because of my love of the movie The Sound of Music.  Who wouldn’t want to visit Austria after seeing Julie Andrews twirling on verdant hilltops?  Are the hills really alive with the sound of music?  I need to know.  And the only way to truly find out is to travel to Austria.

Once we decided upon a trip to Austria, I bought two guidebooks as I always do and started reading up on Austria and highlighting all the places we would visit in Vienna, Salzburg, and beyond.  But as I started researching flights I found a trip to Austria that year was out of our financial reach.  So now I have two out-of-date guidebooks, one of which is partially highlighted with a sad little page corner turned down halfway through where my research abruptly ended.

Austria Guidebooks
The folded page is a sad reminder of the abrupt end of my Austria trip planning.
We have taken many trips since and as we travel the world I always feel a little regret for the trip that never happened.  So when I learned about the GowithOh Guest Tester contest, I had visions of my wished for trip to Austria that could becoming the trip to Austria that did.

If I was lucky enough to be chosen by GowithOh to be a guest tester, Romeo and I would travel to Vienna and stay in the perfect apartment I found described as a “sunny apartment with balcony in the city centre.”

GowithOh Vienna Austria Apartment
My GowithOh apartment of choice in Vienna, a bright little one bedroom one bath,
complete with an actual bathtub and balcony!
Photo Courtesy GowithOh
GowithOh has a number of apartments in Vienna to choose from, 103 in fact.  They are located throughout the city in all the places a traveler might want to stay, and vary in size and offered amenities.  Not only is my apartment of choice clean and cozy looking with a cute little balcony where I can greet the city every morning, it also fits my most important criteria for a place to stay, location.

As you have probably noticed, I love food and local markets.  What attracted me to this GowithOh apartment the most is its proximity to Vienna’s largest open-air market, Naschmarkt.  Since the apartment is equipped with a small kitchen, we would be able to purchase treats at the market and enjoy them during our stay.

The apartment is located in the fourth district, Wieden, which is in the historic center of Vienna just outside the Inner City.  Many of the city’s attractions are within a few minutes’ walking distance, and a metro station is just a couple blocks away.  The apartment would make the perfect home base from which to visit the regal Hofburg palace, which served as the winter home of the Hapsburgs, and St. Stephen’s Cathedral with its brightly colored tiled roof. We could even see an opera performed in one of the most important opera houses in the world, Wiener Staatsoper.

There are so many places in and around Vienna I would love to visit and the trip that never happened deserves to become a reality.

Which of the 17 European cities would you choose to visit if you could stay in one of GowithOh’s apartments?  Well guess what, you could test one of GowithOh’s apartments too!  The GowithOh Guest Tester contest is not just open to bloggers and you can enter to win 500€ to stay in your favorite GowithOh apartment through the GowithOh Facebook page.   Be sure to enter by October 31!  The contest has been extended to November 10! 

Katherine Belarmino and Romeo Belarmino are the authors of Travel the World, a travel blog for the everyday working stiff. They work full-time in non-travel related jobs, but take every opportunity they can to travel the world during their limited vacation time.