A view of Bratislava Castle
The Castle Closer up
Old Town Bratislava with our Cool Guide
We arrived in Vienna around 6:30 last night. There was the ‘Captain’s Dinner’ – not quite a formal affair. But the real treat of the evening was the entertainment – a duo of a piano player and a violinist. They turned out to be respectively the conductor and first violinist of the Slovakia National Orchestra, and they were good, real good. They played a variety of classical music and folk music using a variety of instruments. Everyone, including the crew was entranced.
Our morning starts off with a guided bus/walking tour of Vienna. It is extremely chilly today with the temperature going no higher than 52% with clouds and drizzle – ideal sightseeing weather. Our travel guide today is decidedly inferior to our two previous guides in Budapest and Bratislava. But it gets to the city and gives us our orientation.
When the official tour is finished we head out on our own. I’m going to have to get a good book on the history of the Hapsburgs because I had no idea of the scale of grandiosity of the buildings associated with the Hapsburg Empire.
The Perfect Storm - How to Lose a Small Fortune
When doing extreme sightseeing (a form of activity that consists of trying to see the maximum number important ‘places’ in an allotted – usually short – period of time). The skill sets required to participate in this sport include research in order to know where to go, map reading and orienteering in order to find and get to the places, and of course walking; preferably as fast a possible. Our professionals at Cruise One, Al and Sandy, are enthusiastic practitioners of this sport and we are in full form doing this during our time in Vienna, the cold weather driving our average time at and between ‘places’ down.
One of the challenges of the sport is the requirement to take on nourishment, include a certain number of ‘ typical of the region’ culinary experiences, and of course unload waste materials. Since extreme sightseeing is mostly done in ‘famous’ places, finding bargains is not easy. Add cold, fatigue, a tight timetable and the current state of the dollar and you have the makings of a new record for outlay of funds for minimal amounts of food and drink. Thus we ended up with the coffee for four, two sandwiches and three pastries for $50 and the lunch for four for $123 that included a $10 glass of coke, $6 for five pieces of bread, and three small bottles of water for $7.50.
In the evening we are taken to a tourist concert of Straus and Mozart with a few other composers, ballet, Viennese waltz, and opera thrown in – sort of like listening to one of those ‘best of’ CD’s that have three minutes from 100 classic music hits. Actually the musicianship was quite good and I enjoyed the straight classical pieces a lot.
Riverside Castle on the way to Vienna
A Series of Pictures Showing Our Progression Rising in a Lock
This Picture was taken after the Boat was fully raised
Another Castle on the Way
1 comment:
The Mighty Danube is one of the few European rivers to hurry towards the sunrise at 9. And the further it gets, the more it seems to become its own self,majestic by nature. Once past Budapest, the Danube rules the countryside and daily life, just as it has always done.
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adolfo
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