We moored in Vienna at 6am near a series of floating restaurants (not needed as we had our own on board!) and a beautiful castle.
We were on the included bus and walking tour which gave us a great overview of a city rammed with huge palaces, mostly now repurposed into museums and galleries. And one of these buildings houses the famous Lippizaner horses.
As you can see from this small selection, all on a scale of very large to enormous! Here are a few smaller items and details:
Of course there is a cathedral so we also visited that. One of the spires is still not completely finished.
At the end of the tour, we stayed briefly in the centre to try the famous local sachertorte – a sort of chocolate cake. I think we didn’t pick a good café as the slice we had was disappointingly dry and not very chocolatey.
Of course Vienna is famous for classical music and primarily Mozart. In the evening we attended a special concert put on just for Viking passengers (2 ships were docked together so that made quite a large group of us. The Vienna Residence Orchestra (a mini orchestra of string instruments, piano, flute and timpani) played a series of pieces from Mozart, Josef Strauss (father) and Johann Strauss (son). It was knitted together with some amusing cameos, plus solos and short ballet performances. We have some videos from the show but unfortunately I cannot upload those, but they are great memories for us. We only decided to go to this at the last minute, and it was brilliant. Magic! I loved it.
I cannot resist a beautiful ceiling and they are everywhere in Vienna.
Here you can see the full cast.
The next day we teamed up with another couple and called a cab to drive us to the Kunst Historisches (Art History) Museum. This museum was building to house the Hapsburgs personal and extensive art collection. The interior of the building alone is stunning and there is a great coffee lounge which we had to patronize having toured the exhibitions which most interested us.
The exhibits which stick in my mind the most were some very old, gold and ornate moving sculptures – fore runners of automatons in effect.
Each of these models had some moving parts, the most complex being the gold tower which had people moving on each level. All stunning pieces, even without the movement, and amazing that the museum presents them so you can push a button on the case to see what happens.
Below is a very small selection of paintings – the ones that “spoke to me”.
And finally, the cafe moment!
