Thursday, 3 July 2014

Vienna, Austria

Wednesday July 2nd 2014


Once again this forecast was wrong! We had brilliant sunshine & it felt more like 28-30C

How time flies when you are having fun! I can't believe that we will be heading home this time next week. We have seen & done so much in this last 7.5 weeks, I feel exhausted just thinking about it. In fact we are both starting to feel tired, especially when we have 2 excursions in one day, then a late dinner with entertainment afterwards. Not that we are forced into doing anything, it's just the fact that the opportunity will probably never happen again, so we need to make the most of it. 

Of course we are doing more eating, drinking, walking, singing & dancing in these few weeks here than we do in a year at home. We will need a month in rehab to recover when we arrive home! Not that we are complaining of course.

Today we docked in beautiful Vienna at 8am on a beautiful warm sunny morning. We were both very tired after yesterday & tempted to give the morning tour of Vienna a miss, however, sanity ruled & we pushed ourselves to be ready for departure by 8.30am.

We were collected by our guise & coach, then taken on a 20 minute drive through the main sights. I took lot's of photos before realising that the reflection through the glass window on the coach ensured the quality was poor on most. Here are a few passable ones:


How is this for a house boat with a pool?





Next we were dropped off near the centre of town & taken on a walking tour, ending at St Stephens Cathedral. It was really difficult to obtain a good photo as I couldn't find a spot to obtain the whole building in one photo. Plenty of partial shots from a distance, however, when up close you can't fit it in one frame.





We were given free time to look around & we had a coffee & strudel, which was delicious. Then some window shopping & photo taking.







Met up with our guide at the appointed time and were taken on another walking tour of famous places & buildings:







Then through a beautiful park, ending at our bus.








Back to the ship for a late lunch & rest as we are having an early light dinner & being taken to a concert later this evening. Will do another post on that tomorrow.

Betty & Mike

Wednesday, 2 July 2014

Wachau Valley Scenic Cruising & Durnstein

Tuesday July 1st 2014 - continued

What a great day we have had and it's not over yet!

After lunch we had 1.5hours of scenic cruising through the Wachau Valley. This is a very beautiful part of Austria so we went up to the top deck to take lots of photos. Here are just a few:













We docked in Durnstein around 3pm & proceeded on our tour of this little village at  3.15pm. It started with a little train ride up to the village, then a walking tour with our guide.  Some photos around the village:










Then we were taken to an old Monastery for a wine tasting.



The local wines we tasted were Riesling, another white I can't recall the name of and an Apricot  Schnappes & liqueur. All were excellent, especially the liqueur. Apricots & grapes are grown organically in the micro-climate of the valley in large quantities.    

More Wednesday.

Betty & Mike