I’ve just got back from a trip to Vienna which is one super stunning city.

I hopped on an easyJet flight, booked an Airbnb and spent four days checking out the sights, stopping for coffee and strudel and snapping my way around the city.

So here’s my five ways to see the sights and save money.

Tickets to the Opera for 10 Euros

I love this place, not only is it absolutely amazing to look at, both inside and out, but there’s a way in for every pocket and purse.

If you want a proper sit down ticket then a night at the Wiener Staatsoper, (Vienna State Opera House), can mean shelling out from 150 Euros upwards. Tickets get booked up months in advance and some can even top 300 Euros.

But standby, (quite literally!), for a big moneysaving secret, as you can get tickets for just 10 Euros a time. A limited number of standing tickets are released 80 minutes before each performance so you’ll need to get there early and it’s strictly one ticket per person.

Doing a backstage tour is a great way to see behind the scenes of this amazing building. We did this, it costs 9 Euros and lasts around 40 minutes and you’ll get to go up the Grand Staircase, see the Marble Hall and get a view from the best seats in the house. And even found a mini model of one of my other favourite Opera Houses in the gift shop too!

Free day out at Schonbrunn Palace

This has got to be one of the cherries on the cake, and when it comes to Viennese cakes, we’re talking Sachertorte and Strudel.

Schonbrunn was a summer holiday home for the Habsburg dynasty and is now a Unesco World Heritage Site.

There’s plenty of ticket options from 16 Euros upwards if you want to go into the Palace. And worth booking in advance. You don’t save money this way but you can save 3- 4 hours in queue time!

But my top tip is to head for the park and gardens first. They’re open from 6.30am during the summer and totally free and we’re not talking a small back yard here.

The park and gardens make for a great day out even if you don’t go into the Palace with fountains, statues, manicured lawns and shaded walkways and worth a trip to the Gloriette for great views over Vienna.

Explore Danube Island

Donauinsel, also known as Danube Island is an oasis of calm and a great way to see another side of Vienna. It’s just a few stops on the U-bahn from the centre of the Old Town. Take the U1 line and hop off at Donauinsel station to enjoy beaches, footpaths, cycle trails and some great views of the Danube.

You can stop at one of the many bars or cafes or pack a picnic. As I mentioned in my quick vlog you can pick up fresh food from the food stalls in the Naschmarkt first. My personal favourite is ‘Kaseland’ – aka ‘Cheese Country’ for the ultimate cheeseboard.

Ways to get around

Many of the major sights are around the Ringstrasse which is the main boulevard that circles the old town. It’s around 3 miles so you can walk or hop on a tram.

We used the underground, or U-bahn to get across the city as it’s quick and easy to use. I reckon it’s worth investing in a 24 hour transport pass which covers the bus, train, tram and U-bahn. Costs 8 Euros and as a single ticket costs 2 Euros 40 cents, you only need to make 4 trips to save money. Or you can also buy a 48 or 72 hour version.

Save on the sights

Unless you’re planning to stay forever, you’ll need to pick and choose your sights as you’ll have a hard job to see the lot in a few days.

One of my favourites is the State Hall in the Austrian National Library.

It houses over 200,000 books and the most beautifully decorated domed ceiling I’ve ever seen. Costs 8 Euros to get in, but I think it’s worth every cent.

The Palace of Justice is another impressive building just a short walk from Volkstheater underground stop.

It’s totally free to get in here, but it’s a place of work and not a ‘tourist attraction’, so you’ll need to go through security if you want a look inside. But do check the opening times as it’s not open at weekends.

The pound is going down faster against the Dollar and Euro than your first holiday beer so here’s five ways to boost the power of your holiday pound.

Pre-order currency

Planning pays off. Go online and pre-order your currency to bag better rates. I regularly use TravelMoneyMax.com from MoneySavingExpert.com to find the the best deals and then collect your cash or get it delivered to your door.

Ordering currency in advance usually always means a better deal than bowling up at a high street bank or travel agent to change your money. And leaving it last minute until the airport can mean some of the worst rates so why waste your holiday cash?

Have a whip round

The more money you exchange, the better the rate is the general rule.

Rates typically go up once you hit the £500 mark. So if you’re not planning to take this much yourself, pool your holiday cash with a friend, partner, neighbour, or whoever you’re going on holiday with, as this way you can all bag a better rate.

Pack the right plastic

There’s no ‘one size fits all’ with debit and credit cards. So that very same card you use on the high street may charge sky high rates if you produce it abroad.

Check charges with your bank or card company. Do this several weeks before you go so you’ve still got time to apply for a better value card.

The Santander Zero, Halifax Clarity and Tandem credit cards are among those that don’t add on fees for using cash machines abroad or charge more for spending. Plus there’s a bit of a bonus with the Tandem card as it pays 0.5% cashback on every £1 spent, both in the UK and abroad.

Go local

Always pay in the local currency. Lots of shops and restaurants will offer to switch the bill back to Sterling if you’re paying by card.

Can seem the easy option, but you’ll pay more this way as it’s the shop or restaurant that sets the rate, not your bank or card company.

Known as ‘Dynamic Currency Conversion’ this can bump up your bill by around 5% every time, so just say no.

Switch it back

Bringing home spare cash? Check if the place you bought it from offers a ‘buy back’ deal. This means you can swap your money back at the same rate.

Or trade with friends or family if they’re heading off to the same place.

Most places won’t take coins. Donate them to charity on board the flight home as most airlines have collections, or with some currencies you can change them in Coinstar machines in supermarkets. Not the best deal on the planet as you’ll lose 11.9% in commission but better than nothing.

Think there’s no such thing as a free lunch?   Think again!  Here’s my five easy ways to get a free meal.

Trade in Tesco points

Swap Tesco Clubcard points for three times their value to boost your spending power when eating out.

Go to the Tesco Clubcard website  where you can trade points for restaurant vouchers to use at places including Pizza Express, Cafe Rouge, Bella Italia and Zizzi.

Meerkat Meals

Buy any ‘qualifying’ product from Comparethemarket.com to get its Meerkat Meals deal.

Cheapest ‘qualifying’ product is a one night UK travel policy which you can pick up for under £2 so worth shelling out even if you don’t need the insurance as this way you get ‘2 for 1’ on starters, mains and desserts at restaurant chains including Frankie & Benny’s, Giraffe, Pizza Hut along with lots of independent ones.

Works from Sunday to Thursday and lasts a year.

Join the club

Sign up online with your favourite restaurant, cafe or bar and chances are you’ll get some lovely vouchers to slash the price of your meal.

I always do this if I’m going somewhere new and often get a voucher for a free glass of wine, G&T or even some bubbles with your meal and often a discount off the bill for your first visit.

Plan ahead

Bag a restaurant voucher from sites like MoneySavingExpert.com before you walk through the door.

Heaps of places including many chains like TGI Fridays, Pizza Express and Yo! Sushi seem to offer regular vouchers that you can download and show on your phone.

Grab a Tastecard

Tastecard is a restaurant discount card that means you get deals including 50% off or ‘2 for 1’ at over 6,000 places across the UK.

Usually costs £79.99 for the year, which is pretty pricey, but you can get it cheaper.  Right now  you can get 60 days for just £1 as part of a trial offer.   So you can pay £1, make use of the discounts for two months, and cancel it at the end.

 

Summer has finally arrived so why not make the most of it by packing a picnic and spend the evening at an open air cinema or theatre.   I’ve rounded up five of them and they’re all totally free!

Yes no need to scrabble around for vouchers or do a ‘buy one get one free’ to nab your free ticket, just bowl up, take your seat and enjoy the show!

Canalside film festival

Brindley Place in Birmingham has just kicked off its free annual film festival which runs till 21st July.  Films showing include Mamma Mia, Mary Poppins Returns, The Sound of Music and A Star is Born.

Just turn up, grab a deck chair, (or bring your own cushion), sit back and enjoy!

Shakespeare in the garden

Free open air theatre at The Dell in Avonbank Gardens, Stratford-upon-Avon.

It’s the Royal Shakespeare Company’s outdoor theatre and every weekend through to September you can enjoy a mix of student, community and semi-professional productions.

Cinema on the green

The Greatest Showman, A Star is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody are just some of the movies on screen at this free outdoor cinema event in Welwyn Garden City.

All part of Cinema On The Green which runs from 22nd – 24th August.   Totally free as it’s all funded by local businesses.

Riverside entertainment

If you’re in London then head for the Scoop on the Southbank.

This outdoor amphitheatre shows a mix of movies, theatre, music and events all summer as part of the ‘Summer By The River’ season.

Check the full rundown here

Open air movies in Milton Keynes

Friday and Saturday evenings are movie nights at the Fred Roche Gardens behind the city’s church in central Milton Keynes.

Movies start at 7pm with a line up including Bohemian Rhapsody, Grease and the new Dumbo movie.

I’m feeling just a little bit smug right now as I’ve achieved a ‘personal  best’ in Ikea  Yes my fastest time yet, just 10 minutes from entering the store to emerging plus purchase at the Milton Keynes store.   

As I was tight for time I’d already found the exact aisle I needed in the warehouse and nipped straight to this bit, whizzing in by the tills to short circuit the usual marathon maze!

So here’s my five tips on how to have a stress free and speedy trip to Ikea…..

Remember you have a car not a Tardis….

I can’t be the only one who’s fallen into this trap.  Seems whatever vehicle you drive, once you’re through the doors of Ikea, you just assume it’s suddenly got the inside of the Tardis and that anything and everything you buy will somehow miraculously fit in.

I’ve learnt the hard way over the years that you can’t shoe horn half of Ikea into a Mini or Corsa as no amount of muscle power or creative thinking will find a way to get everything in.  Plus you’ll end up back where you started and have to get a refund on all the stuff that won’t fit in!

Don’t go when it’s busy   

Even if you’re super organised and know what you want and where to find it, if the store’s busy, you’ll end up trailing along at a snail’s pace behind everyone else.  Plus overloaded trolleys are not the easiest things to manoeuvre at speed without causing anyone a serious injury!

If I can, I go mid morning on a weekday or just before closing can be good too, depending on which store you go to.

Check your item’s location

Ok so this won’t work if you’re after a browse round the Marketplace but if you know what you want, you can check it’s in stock before leaving home by going on the Ikea website, finding the item you want, and then clicking on the ‘Find it in -store’ button which tells you the precise aisle and location in the warehouse which all saves time when you’re there.

Take a short cut

If I’m just popping in to pick up something from the warehouse section, I nip in past the tills which is a great short cut as it takes you straight into the warehouse section.   This is a real time saver, and I’ve never spotted any signs to say you can’t do this, and I’ve never been stopped…..

Without this savvy shortcut, even you miss out the ‘showroom’ section, and head through the Marketplace, this can still take time, and of course there’s always the danger that you’ll suddenly realise you need yet another spatula, selection of storage boxes or industrial amount of tealights and candles and rack up a bigger bill with all those impulse buys……

Need a hand?  Ask a fellow shopper….

If you need help getting stuff into your car, you can ask at the till and they’ll ring through to ask someone to meet you at the ‘Assembly Point’.   All well and good but will they turn up, especially if they’re busy?

In Milton Keynes the Assembly Point is directly as you come out of the lifts on the ground floor.  But take it from me,  you can be waiting for help for a long time.

After waiting 10 minutes today for the promised help, I gave up and enlisted the help of a friendly fellow Ikea shopper who was loading up his own car just a few spaces from mine.  He was more than happy to help so job done!

Budget and Boutique aren’t two words you’d usually find together in hotel world.   In fact it’s more like ‘Cheap and Cheerful’ when you think of the likes of budget hotels but having recently discovered Point A  hotels, I’ve got to say they’re a breath of fresh air in the budget hotel market.

Right now there’s six of them in London, one in Glasgow and two more in the pipeline with Edinburgh Haymarket and Kensington Olympia due to open in July.

I checked out the one just minutes from Liverpool Street Station and could happily have stayed the night!

Rooms from £50

Rooms at Point A start from £50, and £75 at the newly revamped Liverpool Street location.

Had a tour of the room and there’s lots of thoughtful touches, like a safe in the room, mood lighting, plug sockets under the mirror, (which makes life easy if you want to dry your hair and actually look in the mirror at the same time, which isn’t something lots of hotels think about!), and there’s even a hidden secret garden for summer nights.

Ok so on the downside, there’s no kettle in the room, and no bar to get a drink, though you can pay for a  cold buffet breakfast and buy drinks from the well stocked fridge at reception.

Join the A-List

All guests get to be ‘A-List’ members when they sign up online.  This is free and means you get 10% off your booking plus a whole heap of discounts in the local area which have been negotiated by the Point A team.

So if you’re staying at Liverpool Street, the offers include a free bottle of wine at the local Carluccio’s, 15% of drinks at the local Ten Bells pub, free use of the DW Fitness First gym.   And there’s a 10% off deal at Blow Dry Express just round the corner.  Had the dream team of Andrea and Natalie doing my hair and they were great so well worth it for a night out, plus you can get 50% off simply by popping in ‘off peak’ during quieter times.

Teccy stuff

Ok so I know we all have different things we look for in a room.  Got to be honest  here, my husband rates a room on the size of the telly, so with a 43 inch Samsung Smart TV in all the rooms you  know you’re not going to be stuck squinting at a tiny telly stuck somewhere in the corner.  Oh and there’s free Wi-Fi in all the rooms too.   Is it time to unpack yet?