What a beautiful day, no rain! We hadn't quite sailed into Vienna by the morning which was ok because it's fun to be in the restaurant in daylight watching everything go by. We went through another lock which was again cool to see, this time in the day. We boarded the busses for a city tour of Vienna and oh what an elegant and grand city it is. The monumental buildings literally look like they've all been plucked out of a museum. The architecture is just beyond awesome, even for all those that were built post WWII, they still have that the same grandeur as any that were constructed 100's of years ago. The city center is known as "1st District" and is in the shape of a circle. The middle of the circle holds the city's focal point, St. Stephens Cathedral and the main pedestrian street, Kärntnerstraße.
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| St. Stephen's Cathedral - Vienna |
Surrounding the 1st District is the Ringstraße that encircles the city on 3 sides, like a horseshoe and the fourth side is the Danube Canal. Our city tour walked us through the old part of town and the beautiful pedestrian streets, including the Rodeo Drive of Vienna. Since it was Sunday all stores were closed. We were even able to catch a glimpse of The famous Lipizzan horses. We were so impressed by all of the buildings and architecture, especially the Parliament Building (like in Budapest!) with an enormous statue of the Greek Goddess Wisdom out front.
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| Vienna's Parliament |
There is a famous Pastry shop called Demel (who was the pastry chef for the Hapsburgs-more on them later) that we had a very expensive cup of coffee and soup in. But it was worth it because it was good! I bought some of their delicious chocolate too. Here is info on Demel's awesome window display's.
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| Inside Demel |
Our last visit in the city was the largest Christkindlmarkt at Rathausplatz.
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| Christmas Markt at the Rathaus |
Our next stop was the Palace of Schönbrunn.
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| Palace of Schönbrunn |
This is the 1000+ room Palace that was originally built as the summer residence of the Habsburg Emperors, the family who ruled Austria for many years. We had a guided tour through the Imperial apartments with original finishings, the living quarters of the Emporers but we were unable to take pictures inside. It reminded us much of Hellbrunn Palace that we saw in Salzburg. It was beautiful and grand, all in Baroque style. Outside on the grounds was another Christkindlmarkt with about 60 stalls of wonderful smells and handcrafted gifts. We purchased our souvenier Glühwein mugs, still to keep warm of course, and headed back to the ship to prepare for dinner which was another wonderful feast. We were finishing up, chatting with our table mates and suddenly the music changes and the staff started singing and they carried a cake with a sparkler lit to our table. We thought for sure they had the wrong table but they brought a celebration cake for our anniversary!
It was so nice and thoughtful! We shared cake with everyone and then watched as the staff did the same thing for a passenger who's birthday was that day. This is such a great cruise!
After dinner we went back into Vienna for a Mozart and Strauss Concert that was held in one of the formal concert houses in Imperial Vienna. It was a beautiful venue and the concert was so small and intimate and much more than I had anticipated. There were 2 opera singers as well as 2 dancers that acted during the Waltz and Polka songs. It was a must do in the "Music Capital of the World!"
this is so interesting and is the
ReplyDeletenext best thing to being there.
Glad you are having such a great
time there. Still miss you.
Charlotte