Jul 23 – Vienna, Austria

Last updated on August 30th, 2019 at 10:43 am

Joyce woke this morning with the ship in the first of 68 locks. It didn’t look like the ship was moving, but we could soon see we were slowing rising as the water poured into the lock. It was very interesting and fun to watch reclining on our bed. As we left the lock we sailed through what looked like miles and miles of concrete barriers along the sides of the very wide river. It may have still been part of the lock as the trees in the distance made it look like we were higher than the ground around us.

This morning with no tour to rush to, we ate breakfast in the dining room. We ate with two couples in which the men were brothers. The older brother and his wife had been married for 50 years. The other brother, 6 years his junior and his wife had been married 3 years. The older brother is an attorney, the wife a computer programmer and they live in Florida. The younger brother is a retired managerial salesman and his wife is a dietitian and they live in California. The brothers grew up north of Boston, which became more evident through their accent the longer we talked. We shared interest in college football; the older couple plans to visit Notre Dame this fall when Boston College plays the Irish.

Between 9:45 a.m. and 10:25 a.m., we sailed past Bratislava, the capital city of Slovakia. We walked up to the sun deck and enjoyed beautiful views of the city as well as the castle complex on the hill above the city that serves a the presidents office and seat of Slovakian government.

We had to leave the sun deck to return to our stateroom to get our life jackets, stored under our bed, to participate in the safety training. It was much easier than what we have experienced on ocean cruises. We only had to climb two small flights of stairs to get to our safety station on the sun deck and report to our crew representative. On the ocean cruises, you climb about 10 flights of stair without elevators, which was difficult and time consuming considering the age and walking ability of most of the passengers – not us of course!

We attended a briefing by Marie, our program director, describing the optional excursions available. She also gave a fun, humorous and informative German lesson.

It was now time for lunch, just what we need to do, eat again! But, we are on a cruise, right, so to lunch we go! After lunch, Alan took a nap and continues his work on our pictures. Joyce took her iPad and keyboard to the lounge to blog at a table.

Alan joined Joyce in the lounge for a live demonstration of making Apple Strudel with Chef Marius. The chef and his pastry chef guided two guests to make the strudel which will be baked and later served to the crew. We then each enjoyed a piece of apple strudel.

After our apple strudel, Marie gave us a some information about Mozart’s life. He was born in Salzburg. He began playing and composing at the age of 3. His father was a composer and music instructor for the Habsburgs,  the long-time emperors of Austria in its various forms, so he recognized his son’s talent. He particularly enjoyed composing operas. He too worked for the Habsburg court, though he quit in rebellion a couple times.

He and his wife had two children and lived in an expensive apartment in Vienna. During his lifetime, composers didn’t receive royalties for their compositions so the only way to earn a living was to continue composing and performing, be a music instructor and/or sell your compositions. He died in his early 30’s about two months after collapsing on the stage in Prague. His wife is largely responsible for making him famous after his died.

Before arriving in Vienna about 6 p.m., we went through another lock. We are attending a Mozart and Strauss concert this evening and were conflicted about what to do about dinner. We finally decided to grab a quick light bite in the Aquavit lounge around 6:30 p.m. – 6:45 p.m. before leaving at 7:30 p.m. We learned that there isn’t really a way to get a quick bite for dinner on the ship. Both the dining room and the lounge offer a menu-based meal. There are just very few seats available for dinner in the lounge. We opted to skip dinner – we had eaten a lot today with little exercise! We also knew we would get goulash soup after the concert.

The ship arrived in Vienna and very soon we were off for a concert of Mozart and Strauss music performed by the Resident Orchestra at the Palais Auersperg.

The concert hall was a relatively small room, with beautiful chandeliers and fairly uncomfortable folding chairs placed very close together.

The music was preformed by a 8 piece orchestra, a piano, a flute, two violins, a viola, a cello and a stringed bass. We were also treated to performances by a male and female ballet pair and male and female opera singers. The music was beautiful and we recognized the melody from most of the pieces.

We had some fun when the concert master sought a volunteer from the audience to play the triangle on one of the pieces. He did a great job and after the piece was finished the flutist jokingly offered his flute to the volunteer. The man took it and preceded to play the entire piece. The musicians were smiling and acting very surprised. There was a woman that appeared to be with the man that was laughing and using her phone to take video. We thought maybe he was a plant, but then doubted it considering the reactions of the musicians. A couple of the people on our ship reported that they talked to the man and verified that he was a tourist, but he was also a professional musician. Joyce, who played the flute in high school, knew there was no way she could have played that piece.

After returning to the ship, we were served goulash and bread as a late evening snack. The goulash was very tasty, with Alan having seconds. Alan is not a big fan of vegetable soup, but he really liked the goulash. The goulash has more meat and maybe the Hungarian paprika added a different flavor. The dollop of sour cream didn’t hurt either!  We watched a Viking video about making goulash, so we will have to try it at home with some of the Hungarian paprika we purchased.

We will have a full day of touring tomorrow in Vienna, so this post needs to end.