It’s time to say goodbye. Remembering the surreal silence of Budapest and the enormous confusion of  Istanbul, we’re directed to Vienna, capital of solemnity and elegance. 

Said goodby to our Turkish hosts and our Greek friends, we left to the airport very early in the morning. The tiredness of these days was starting appear on our faces. 

Arrived in Vienna, after the check-in in the magnificent Hotel Kaiserin Elizabeth, our first thought was the lunch. We ate a delicious hamburger in a restaurant near the hotel and, charged our energies, we took a taxi to arrive at Belvedere Museum and Gardens. Visiting the palace, we saw many beautiful and famous paintings, in particular works by Monet and Klimt, such as the famous “The Kiss”. To relax us and to prepare for the “tour by night”, we had a break in one of the most typical and famous pastry shop: Demel, where the Sacher was born. Before going to the hotel to have a shower, we visited the imposing Cathedral, with his breathtaking coloured roof and his dark interior. We had dinner with a typical cotoletta with French fries and then we went back, to the rhythm of a waltz, to Habsburg court of 17th and 18th century. We walked all around imperial Palaces, imagining how emperors had lived and how it’s changed the city until now.  

The following day we woke up quite early to spend as time as possibile visiting the city. Our first destination was Schloss Schoenbrunn, Habsburg Emperors’ private residence. The castle has many elegant rooms, which hosted Emperor Maria Theresa of Austria and his husband Francesco Giuseppe and then Emperor Elizabeth (known as Sissi) with her husband. Also the gardens were spectacular. Last but not least destination of our trip is the Natural History Museum. Here we saw many works of artists from ancient to modern era, but mostly we saw works by the Italians Tiziano, Raffaello and Caravaggio. It was wonderful. 

With the visit of this “temple of art” our Erasmus experience finished. In fact, after lunch, we arrived to the airport, directed to Milan.

But our adventures didn’t finish. Arrived in Milan one hour late, a surprise was waiting for us: the trunk of the bus, which would finally take us home, with our suitcases inside, broke. Our return trip seemed us like an Odyssey. Finally, thanks to prof. Cignatta’s agitation and prof. Pichetto’s calm, we got home tired and late, but with many adventures and e experiences to tell and surely a little grown.