Dec 3, 2017 - Castles and Monastery

December 3 - Christine's birthday. So the day started with her opening a card from Iain and his gift which we had selected yesterday in Vienna - an edelweiss charm for her Pandora bracelet. We then got ready and had breakfast. The ship had docked at Durnstein, a small village of about 800 people whose claim to fame is being the sight of the imprisonment by King Richard the Lionheart. A castle, built soon after that event is still visible on the hill above the village. We got ready and set off to reacquaint ourselves with the place. We had...

Dec 2, 2017 - Ah! Vienna

The day looked dull when we woke, but the mist burned off quickly and by the time we had got ready and had breakfast the sun was shining on a cold morning. We boarded a bus to take us on a trip round the city. I do not think we saw anything new, but it was good to have our memories refreshed. It is always good to see new places, but it is reassuring to return to familiar places and feel secure in the knowledge that you have at least some idea of where things are and how to get about. After touring the Ringstrasse we were dropped near the...

Oct 3, 2017 - Vienna to Vosendorf

We left our apartment in Vienna, a short u-bahn and tram ride to the airport, to go to a hotel 'closer' to the airport. We took the u-bahn to Karlsplatz, found the Oper station and boarded the tram towards Joseph Baden. It travelled above ground. We saw that the city is filled with old 18th century buildings mixed in with modern. Old baroque stands proudly with their rounded corners and turrets. A neat ride. Across from us sat a Polish now Canadian couple. It had been 35 years since they had been here. Of course he knew where to get off....

Sep 29, 2017 - Schloss Schonbrun, Schloss Belvedere, and Prater

We were off early with coffee at McDonald's and the underground to Schonbrun. A short walk brought us to Schloss Schonbrun. It is huge! 20,000 is the number I remember. Hectares maybe? We had our tickets....Sisi tickets....so skipped the line, picked up our audiophone and entered the world of Empress Marie-Therese. She was fond of rococco....so lots of roccoco was used here as well. With the walnut paneling, it looked quite nice. Color was used in more private rooms. Off white with the gold rather than the stark white seemed easier on the...

Sep 28, 2017 - Vienna

Yesterday was spent mainly at the airport in Munich....walking, reading and eating. We had a 5p flight..arrived at 6p into Vienna. We caught the above ground train to Landstrasse and the metro 2 stops, walked across the bridge and approx. 5 blocks to the hotel. The area seems safe but does not appear safe. When we arrived we had no way in....no-one was here. Fortuneately a tenant came out and phoned the owners who explained where the keys could be found and where our room was. Not a good start. We met the receptionist/manager this a.m. She...

Sep 24, 2017 - A weekend in Vienna to finish our trip

We started our final four nights of travelling by checking into the Hilton to finish our trip in luxury. The Schonbrunn Palace was the first place we visited, a former imperial summer palace. We took an audio guide and visited 40 of the 1,441 rooms of the Palace. Each room was decorated in a different style to the previous, with each room looking grandeur than previous Palaces we have visited. As we are in wind down mode we decided to keep each day simple and spread our itinerary out over our final 4 days. Day two we decided to have a...

Sep 19, 2017 - Melk Abbey and our Danube River cruise

As we had a couple of days to kill before arriving in Vienna we decided to stop by a tiny village of 5,000 inhabitants called Melk and we were really glad that we did. Melk only has one major attraction, the 11th century Benedictine Melk Abbey. The abbey itself is enormous and literally towers over the entire village. Our hotel for the night sat almost under the abbey itself and was hosted by a wonderful couple who were very friendly. The hotel was a throwback to a bygone era and it added to the quaintness of the village itself. Given...

Sep 17, 2017 - Charming Salzburg

We arrived into Salzburg and checked into our hostel. It's certainly the biggest one we have stayed in so far and had a really cool bar/lounge area. After a restless nights sleep in our dorm room we headed out into Salzburg for a full day of sightseeing. We started by visiting the Salzburg fortress which was built around the 1400s. It is perched high above the city itself and had been expanded slowly until the late 1800s into the fortress it is today. The fortress offers magnificent views of the old town itself as well as being able to...

Sep 16, 2017 - Innsbruck

Our first destination in Austria was the city of Innsbruck. In truth we picked here as it was the easiest place to get to from Fussen and only had half a day to have a look around. Innsbruck has very much an alpine feel to it with many skills resorts dotted around Tyrol and alpine views from just about anywhere is the city itself. We had planned to go up a cable car to one of the mountains 2,300m above the city but as luck would have it the rains and low clouds came over when we arrived to scuppered our plans. With little else to do we had...

Sep 16, 2017 - Innsbruck

Yesterday we drove to Lake Como....an upside down Y-shaped lake surrounded by houses with a town-Como-at one end. The setting is spectacular. From here we went to Switzerland driving along Lake Lugano and up the autoroute through equally spectacular scenery...jagged mountains, narrow canyons, magnificent waterfalls cascading from high up. The most amazing, I think, was San Bernadino where the pass was close to 3000 m. or more. From the lookout the snowshed that became a long tunnel was just up around the corner. We descended through a...

Sep 10, 2017 - Albertina Museum

Our last day in Vienna we walked to a pastry shop near our apartment so I could try Sacher torte for breakfast. We visited the Albertina Museum with the world's largest assemblage of Old Masters prints and drawings. We also saw the Monet To Picasso show and Drawings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. At 5 PM we were back on the train to Budapest, about 4 hours away.

Sep 8, 2017 - Leopold Museum

There are over a hundred museums in Vienna. The Leopold Museum is located in the Museums Quartier, the former royal stables, along with a children's museum and a technology museum. To see two art exhibits in one museum was a real treat. See photos of Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt collections. Lunch was sausages and beer at an outdoor pop-up restaurant manned by local firefighters. It was an annual fund-raiser.