The rain that deluged Vienna the day before I welcomed because I was able to time it with some museum visits. But you need a lot of rainy days to cover Vienna’s treasure trove of museums, one seemingly better than the other.
So when I woke up in the morning and saw clear skies I left for an extensive walk in a city that I did not see till 1990. And the marathon was for sure the unexpected surprise because when you travel you worry about many other things than the next marathon.
The beauty of it is that you can watch the marathon from various point of the city and admire its monumental architecture in the same time. And it’s no effort to detour your walk because the organizers marked the running path to follow the beauty of this fabulous city.
The arrival was in front of the city hall after the runners followed the ring and were welcomed by pumping music, lots of crowds and of course a lot of police who were watching the crowds.
Locals and lots of tourists were packing the avenues, many caring posters encouraging the runners while others had cow bells banging them continuously. But overall it was nice, sunny Sunday morning and people went out with families and lots of babies and toddlers having just a relaxed time in a very quiet, relaxed and safe city.
My last day in Vienna in my European periple. I wanted for a long time to travel in Eastern Europe by train. In the USA we always fly from one point to another and train seems to be there a thing of the past. Of course there is no incentive to improve trains like in all things in the States where business trumps the interest of the people. And more than anything I wanted to travel in Eastern Europe since I have been in Croatia many years ago. It’s more lively, less stressed, people feeling that even if they may earn less, live a more relaxed and connected life. Of course when you come from New York it seems that everybody in the world seems relaxed 🙂 When I descended in Budapest’s Keleti lots of young, nice guys and girls stayed behind. Were they going to Ukraine or maybe they would stop somewhere along the way to the border? Or maybe they were going to enroll to defend their country of the invasion created by the maniac (Ras)Putin? Or they were just visiting the country they love but they cannot live in it because of the terrorist disaster created by the Russians? I could not know their intentions and all I followed was those stupid debates in the American congress to give them arms to defend their country and with it our way of life. And this war is also a marathon, a marathon of life and death but at whose end you don’t win a medal but a country and a way of living.
Roaming the world 
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