Kylin's European Grand Adventure: Day 17 Vienna

This might be my favorite city so far! The morning started off bad for Viking because the buses got blocked by a lorry and then one of them scratched a police car. It took some negotiations to get the buses released (probably some money exchanged hands). The coach toured the ringstrasse before letting us off to do a walking tour. The guide's cadence put us to sleep in the bus. Fortunately, she was not our walking guide! A lot of the buildings around the ringstrasse were built in the late 1800's to look old.

Our walking guide was really knowledgeable and funny! We saw the wedding church ( where the royals get married). She told the story of Marie Antoinette who was pledged to the prince of France at age 16. He did not attend the wedding because it would have taken so long by coach so her uncle was his representative. She wrote in her diary that she married her uncle.

The Hasburgs ruled 700 years and their palace is 18 connected buildings with 9 large courtyards. Across from part of the palace is where the white princesses live -- the dancing horses! We saw some of the foals in their stalls. They stay with the mare for 4 years and then they are in training for 6 years with the same trainer. They get vacation the same as any worker so they were currently on holiday!

Vienna is beautiful with many old buildings in the center. It also has many modern buildings outside of the center. The streets in many parts of the old town are really large. Most of the buildings are from limestone or sandstone which blacken easily so for a larger building they are constantly cleaning them. The scaffolding is never seen because they cover it with large posters of the part of the building being cleaned. Very cool!

We went into St Stephens cathedral -- a very large cathedral. Pictures to follow. Then we stopped at an outside cafe and I had Vienna Melange and John had iced coffee and apple strudel. The melange is half coffee and half hot milk with foam. Really good! Apple strudel was not Ute's!

From there we went on a guided tour of the opera house. The opera house was totally amazing! The technology to move lead curtains, floors up/down, move sets in and out for each production, move them from storage to the back stage is incredible. The ballet productions take special wood flooring and covering and must be taken up/down for practices and performances. They employ 800 to do all this. They do 50 operas, never consecutively, and 17 ballets a season which starts in early September. We got to see the royal intermission room, sit in the central box -- the seats are 250E for premiers -- and the intermission room for the general public. The opera house was almost totally destroyed in the war and rebuilt in the 1950's which allowed them the opportunity to upgrade the technology to do their present schedule. The only part still remaining of the extravagance is the lobby and staircases to the boxes.

The subway back to the Danube was easily navigated and we found our way back w/o much effort.

Tonight was a concert by the Viennese Chamber orchestra. It was entertaining and a different activity but not the best we've seen. They wore dresses from Mozart's time which were very pretty and they had some ballet numbers but the stage was so small that they didn't have much room to twirl/swirl or barely move; however, I thought they did well for the space they had.

I was quite hungry this a.m. but I didn't eat all of it!