Vienna, Austria

Vienna, Austria

Another glorious day with a promise of 27 degrees.

Vienna is one of the great cultural and historic capitals of Europe and was once the home of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.

We started our day with a visit to Schloss Schonbrunn (Schonbrunn Palace) which was completed in 1749 under the Empress Maria Tereasa as her summer palace.  This palace has 1,140 rooms in the main structure and lord only knows how many outbuildings.  The whole outer wall has been converted to modern apartments.  I didn’t even see where this block started and finished.

We didn’t find out how large the gardens were but they have a zoo etc and we walked for ½ hr and didn’t even reach the first level of multiple levels we could see.  The gardens did not have any flowers out but were the typical sculptured greenery with lots of paths/roads leading everywhere.  There were also extensive woodlands and we had a brief walk up one trail to check out the squirrels.

It was then time to do the tour of the Palace.  This Palace has been partially restored/preserved (it only had one bomb in the war, which was a dud so escaped major damage) and we walked thru one opulent room after another.  The difference here was that they were furnished and had the original artworks and tapestries so you could see how each room was used.  Marie Tereasa had 16 children so they needed a big space to keep them and one room was decorated solely with the paintings done by her daughters.  They were very talented!  It was also interesting to see massive wall sized paintings done of special events, one showed that  people paid to have their faces painted into the crowd.  Also interesting was at a banquet the royal family (and maybe one or two special guests) would sit down to a 14 course dinner and everyone else (ie hundreds) would pay to be invited to the banquet but they could not eat, they paid for the privilege of standing and watching the royals eat.

I really enjoyed the visit and could have spent a lot more time there.  Alan is not good at looking at interiors of buildings.

After a ‘grill’ (BBQ) on the sundeck for lunch we set off on a walking tour of Vienna City.  We went past losts of museums, cathedrals etc but had really had enough so just ventured off on our own up and down the many streets and alleyways.  Unfortunately it was a public holiday today so no shops were open (good thing as I couldn’t even afford to window shop in this place).  We eventually stopped at a coffee house and decided to have a hot chocolate as we had been told they were a local speciality.  This was a real treat as it arrived on a silver tray with a large mug with 2 bars of real chocolate in the mug, a jug of hot frothy milk, some cream and a whisk.  You pour the milk over the chocolate and whisk till its melted then add the side dish of whipped cream and a strawberry.  Decidedly wicked and delicious.

We continued wandering the streets until time to return to the ship.  We had an early buffet dinner tonight as there was a Mozart concert on offer (which we opted out of) and 75% of the ship drifted off around 7pm.  We did a stroll up the boardwalk and decided we had done enough for the day.

Tomorrow we have a full program in Bratislava in the Slovak Republic. 

The blog won’t be updated until we reach Budapest as the ship cannot get internet connections in Bratislava.