We were up at 07:30 and got ready to leave at 08:00 without breakfast. It wasn’t to go to the Sofiensäle just yet, we had somewhere else to be first.

How could we visit a country we'd not been to before, one that has a parkrun community, and not actually visit parkrun. Of course, we'd be going there. We walked to the station at Praterstern to catch the U1 train to Alte Donau. Fortunately this U-Bahn station is very close to the start, which is handy for anyone arriving by public transport. I saw some people used the short trek as a warm up, but with how humid it felt, neither of us bothered, and just enjoyed the walk.

There were a lot of British visitors there, and also a few other places from around the world such as Singapore. Some were definitely here for the EuroGames, as one was competing in the tennis. I thought it seemed like tourists may have outnumbered locals. The Run Director for this week was British, but the person who had done the first timers briefing repeated it in German afterwards as well.

Rather than use the whole park, which few parkruns do, and would be difficult to signpost here, the route is three laps around the lake without ever really providing a look at the lake. Volunteers this week included a photographer out on the course, a tail walker, and the rest were at the finish funnel. They’d not had enough people sign-up, so it’s fortunate it’s signposted and is without any real hazard as the miniature railway wasn’t running at the time. On the first lap I set off at my normal sort of speed, and felt fine despite the heat. I think it may have been very slightly down hill too which have me a false sense of security, but there’s definitely a slight up hill towards the Danube Tower.

What I hadn’t noticed during the run was that we passed table tennis tables, mini golf, and more. I’d seen some sculptures in the park, and had seen a building, but hadn’t realised that the building was the Korean cultural centre. Carmen was in a similar position to me: focussing on the run.

I completed the first lap without issue, but half way around the second lap I struggled in the heat and took walking breaks. I used each walking break to wipe sweat from my eyes, as salt was running down my forehead into them; causing them to sting. My legs on the other hand didn’t mind the miles at all despite the distance they’d covered yesterday. I just couldn’t quite control the breathing in this heat.

Once I’d finished the three laps, and had scanned my barcode, I walked over to the corner before the finish to cheer on runners until I saw Carmen. At that point I grabbed our bags to take over to her. Bags are definitely safe here as I’d left mine on the ground with a Canon EOS 5D mk 4 without risk of being stolen. The thought of it being left unsupervised, but hidden, did make me want to run quicker at times though.

As we’d not yet had breakfast, our plan was to find out what a typical Viennese breakfast was like at the cafe near the U-Bahn. Despite what we’d heard, the serving staff were friendly and helpful. We both ordered the big breakfast containing a croissant, a bread roll, peppers, tomatoes, cheese, ham, jam, a boiled egg, and orange juice. We ordered an extra drink as well as parkrun had been so warm. It wasn’t until about an hour after we’d left that we realised the orange juice had never arrived. For the two of us this was about €35 with the tip. This was actually the first time I'd had a boiled egg instead of scrambled since I was at primary school, or even before that. I'd not had a boiled egg with a runny centre since the days of the salmonella scare in the 1980s when my Mum stopped buying eggs. Since then I've only had scrambled when I've been traveling in more recent years. I made such a mess of opening it that I didn't get to eat much of the egg.

We walked to the Donauturm next, and found it to be very quiet even though it’d been open for about thirty minutes. It certainly wasn’t like the queues I’d seen in other countries for their big viewpoints. We scanned our tickets and took the elevator straight to the observation deck, where we could see for miles in all directions.

The Donauturm is the tallest structure in Vienna at 2,352 metres above sea level, and stands close to the Danube river for which it is named. It was only eleven months ago I first saw the Danube during a trip to Budapest with my sister, so was nice to see another part of it. The tower itself looks quite similar to the Fernsehturm in Berlin, but that one is taller than this.

A lot of the high viewpoints I’ve been to have either been in the city centre, or very close to them with sights in most directions. With this tower, the majority of what there is to see covers less than 180° to the south. You can see the giant ferris wheel in Leopold Park, the white spires of the Votive Church, a TV tower in the distance, and the top of the iconic St. Stephen’s Cathedral - the symbol of Vienna.

It wasn’t until we were up that tower I realised how close the Viennese Alps are. I could imagine the hills such as Hermannskogel would have looked amazing in the snow. With not so much to see to the north, this is where there’s a slide from one of the higher floors of the tower to the observation deck.

Our walk back out of the park completed a fourth lap of the park, with a stop at a kiosk for an ice cream on the way to the train station. We took the U1 to Praterstern, and thought from there we could take either a train or a tram - on Google Maps it wasn’t completely clear what the icon was meant to be. By the time we figured out where we needed to go, we’d missed the tram. Instead, we took the S2 overground train to the central station, and walked from there to the dance hall in time for Carmen to see the morning presentations.

A while later we too the O tram back to a stop near the apartment, and found the walk from there would be much quicker than taking a train or train from Praterstern as the walk would be a lot shorter. We showered, and got changed, and then went back to the O tram to get back to the dance hall for the second time today.

On our way from the tram stop to the dance hall, we stopped by Billa to get breakfasts for the next two days as supermarkets and restaurants don’t open Sundays, and would close by 18:00 today. With this in mind we also got some more pasta sauce to use later. We’d essentially bought what we needed for three meals for two people, for just €7.85.

When we arrived at the Sofiensäle it was already 15:20, but we then stayed until just after 19:00. In those four hours we saw the A class finals, the group show dance from Carmen’s friends, the couples show dances, and of course the final presentations for the EuroGames dance competition. This was the last time the Vienna competition that was happening alongside the games was going to happen, so there was a presentation and speech for that too.

Carmen had booked tickets at £15/pp for the Pink Champions Ball in the evening, so I’d had to pack some smarter clothes for that. Somehow I’d still managed to fit them into the same suitcase I’ve used for city breaks for at least the last few years. The start of the ball was 20:00, so had little time for getting ready if we were to be on time, but that was not the plan.

A mainstay of Viennese culture since the 18th Century, usually balls in Vienna are held during Carnival from November to whenever Shrove Tuesday falls. These however are the big fancy balls you’d see in the historic buildings such as the Hofburg. They are the sort that have strict dress codes, and open with a Viennese waltz. In our case we were at the same venue as the dance competition had been, and the dress code was ‘creative black tie’, so far from being as strict as those. I didn’t particularly want to be wearing a tie though, so hadn’t packed one - I went with a simple shirt and black trousers. Carmen had decided to wear a cheongsam (a traditional Chinese dress), but was impressively still able to have full mobility whilst wearing it.

We took the tram back to the apartment, and had pasta. Changing into the shirt and trousers wasn’t that pleasant, but whilst the apartment felt hot to be wearing them, it’d cooled down enough outside to not be too bad for the most part. We got back to the dance hall around 21:00.

Carmen’s first dance of the night was with one of her friends doing a jive, and was very energetic for having just arrived. Doing anything was sweaty work there. She got in quite a few dances with her friends, including a Viennese waltz, which is what she’d really wanted to do. I think doing a Viennese Waltz, seeing her friends compete, and doing parkrun had ticked off the big things for her on this trip.

I was asked to do a rhumba by one of the competitors from earlier, but I politely refused saying I don’t know how to, and when asked if I wanted to learn I told her “not really”. She’d disappeared promptly after that. Carmen did however do one simple waltz with me for almost a minute, a little after that.

We left around 23:30, and got back to the apartment sometime after midnight. I was hopeful that as I wanted to be up early in the morning, I’d be able to fall asleep quickly.