Jul 24 – Vienna, Austria

Last updated on August 30th, 2019 at 10:53 am

Our day began with breakfast in the dining room with the brothers and their wives whom we ate with yesterday. We discussed our adventures from the day before and also talked about some of our previous adventures. We found our the TK, Bob’s wife had been is Thailand about 6 months or so before we were there in 2005.

After breakfast we began our panoramic tour of historic Austrian sights. We began with a bus tour to the city center. On the way we passed the St. Francis Cathedral, nicknamed the Jubilee Cathedral. We headed to the Ringstrasse, a major street which replaced the city walls around the city in the mid-19th century. On the way, our guide pointed out various museums, concert halls, opera houses, government buildings, as well as several city parks. Many of the buildings were draped and had scaffolding because renovations were ongoing. Our guide explained that many of the buildings are made of sandstone or local limestone and require maintenance due to pollution. It was evident where restoration had already been completed and the blackened coloring had been removed.

We got off the bus, walking by statues of Franz Joseph and Elizabeth, his wife ( nicknamed Sissy) on our was to the Hofburg Palace. We walked through several courtyards within the Hofburg Palace, which now houses government offices. We continued walking through the old city, admiring the architecture and the many statues and reliefs on nearly every building.

We walked through exclusive shopping districts and saw monuments and memorials to different Austrian historical figures and events, such as a column commemorating the end of the Black Plague. Along the way we also saw the remaining ruins of a Roman wall that had been excavated.

Our destination was St. Stephens Cathedral, the most important cathedral in Vienna. We were given a couple hours of free time to explore St. Stephens Cathedral and the surrounding area on our own before meeting up with our local guide for the walk back to the bus.

There was no charge to enter the cathedral and walk around the back and one side. The cathedral is Gothic-style construction with  tall narrow windows on the sides made of small squares of colored glass instead of stained glass scenes. It had many of the statues and features we are coming to expect in cathedrals, though there weren’t any ceiling paintings. The inside of the cathedral was fairly dark. The organist seemed to be practicing. We hoped to hear some hymns, but he or she mostly practiced scales and parts of songs.

We left St. Stephens Cathedral and walked around the back of the building to get our bearings. We found an ATM with no fee and withdrew some Euros to have a little cash with us. We were delighted to see the beautiful tiles on the roof of the cathedral in the back.

We noticed a sign pointing to the apartment Mozart and his family lived for the longest time while in Vienna. We decided to try to find it and were successful. It wasn’t particularly impressive from the outside and there were quite a few people in the lobby area waiting to purchase tickets, so we took the pictures we could and moved on.

We visited a couple of souvenir shops, looking for something for our Christmas tree representing Austria. We found intricately cut wooden ornament representing St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

After our free time, we met up with our guide and walked back to the buses waiting at Swedish Square. We returned to the ship and ate lunch in the dining room.

Our afternoon tour took us to the Schonbrunn Palace and Garden. This was the summer palace of the Habsburg royal family that began as a hunting lodge out in the countryside in which to hunt. Maria Theresa expanded the lodge into a palace and eventually moved from Hofsburg Palace to make Schonbrunn the family’s permanent home.

We toured several rooms containing statues, paintings of the family and several pieces of original furniture including the royal ceremonial bed. This was the bed on which the royal children were born with the appropriate important witness looking on. We were not allowed to take pictures, so here is a YouTube video to watch if interested.

We attended the nightly port talk for Marie to tell us interesting facts and information about our day tomorrow in Melk. This evening we ate with an Indian family from Texas. They are traveling with their daughter.

The ship doesn’t leave Vienna this evening until 10 p.m. We thought about taking the Metro after dinner to ride a giant vintage Ferris wheel, but the logistics made Joyce nervous. We wanted to walk off some of our dinner and achieve our goal of 10,000 daily steps so we went for a walk.

There is a man-made island in the Danube with a large park we decided to explore. We walked along the dock area and found steps to a bridge spanning the Danube. Vienna is a very bike and pedestrian friendly place with lots of wide paved areas with separate sections for bikes and pedestrians. The bridge had a lower section for this purpose. We walked along this area enjoying views of Vienna and the river in the setting sun. We made it to the island, but since it was getting dark, turned around for a leisurely walk back.

Back on the ship, Alan decided to work on our pictures and Joyce chose to attend a lecture on Austrian history, presented by a local guide. The talk was both fun and informative as the lecturer had a fun sense of humor. She shared things about the history of Austria, the Habsburgs, a little about the land division after World War II and its consequences for Austrians as well as poking fun at some Austrian character traits.

The evening ended as most evenings do – working on pictures and blogging.