Occasionally when you travel, there’s no place to go but up. Getting to Vienna yesterday began with our direct flight on Austrian Air being cancelled at 9 a.m.. We were shoved into an Italian Air flight to Rome with a two-hour wait for a connecting flight. The extra-room seats we originally paid 100 Euros to get … Fuggedaboudit. We were crammed into the middle four-across and most of the movies were of the Fast and Furious ilk.

So Tuesday morning’s loooong line for passport control at Rome’s Fiumicino was followed by the 45-minute wait for our bags in Vienna’s airport.

We train and metro to our home-exchange apartment where the cleaning lady meets us at the front door, gives us a key and, rather than explain how anything works, says “Welcome and the key is difficult to get into the apartment door, so good luck and goodbye.“

We distribute our gear throughout the living quarters and grab the “D Tram” to take the Rick Steves self-guided walking tour from Vienna’s opulent Opera House but, the minute we step from tram to tarmac, rain drenches us and the city. We cross the street, get on the D Tram returning to our place and duck into the Spar supermarket to get necessities — tonic and limes mostly — and return to our second-floor airy.

Now the “up” kicks in. We find Porzellan restaurant/lounge: a local restaurant with crisp white table clothes and a heavily tattooed waiter for Negronis and Gruner and lamb perfectly cooked on a bed of lentils. Dash back to our place in the rain, ablute, and dive under the covers.

Tuesday ends.