Normally my posts on being30.com are quite long, but this one despite being short, deserves a post all by itself.
Salzburg took around 2 and half hours to reach by train from Vienna. What we did not know was there are two trains from Vienna to Salzburg.
1) The Westbahn
(in blue, green and white in the photo below)
2) The OBB (in red)
Once we had bought our tickets at the main station in Vienna, we boarded the first train we saw going to Salzburg. We were in for a surprise when the ticket inspector came round to check our tickets.
Guess what? The tickets we had bought from the main station in Vienna where the ticket vendor said she could give us a deal of 2 for 80 euros instead of 46 each, were not valid on this train. I had asked this ticket vendor if we could use any train and she said of course.
Hmm what a lie.
When I tried to explain the situation to the ticket inspector (on the train), he just proceeded to tell us that the tickers were not valid and if we had bought the tickets on board it would have cost 28 euros. He then continued to talk at us (yes, he was on a serious rant – impressive as it was in his second language) about how wonderful his new train was, how fast it was, clean, that there was a café on board, it was air-conditioned and everything was new. This was irrelevant for us as we had to get off at the next stop and wait for the older and slower train which arrived 45 mins later and took an extra hour to get to Salzburg.
Tip: If you are travelling from Vienna to Salzburg, buy your ticket for the Hansbann online as there are no ticket vendors at the station. It will be quicker and cheaper than taking the OBB, You can also buy tickets on board. It costs 28 euros as opposed to 40 euros on the OBB.
If only this information was available to tourists.
