August 18….Finally…we're starting the next chapter…..Vienna!!

We had a walking tour scheduled for that morning and, after Rod and Priscilla arrived at over, Rod was determined to give Uber another chance . We got lucky this time as Adam, our ultimate Uber guy, showed up in his big, black van, complete with WiFi and cushy seats. Adam, not only restored our faith in the Uber system, but became our exclusive Uber guy for trips to the airport and wherever else we needed him to take us.

We met our tour guide, Herbert, at the Hofburg Imperial Palace, built in the 13^th century and expanded in the centuries since.   We were a little late and Herbert was not happy about it and was pretty grumpy but, after a bit, he loosened up and became quite pleasant, interesting, and even a little humorous.

Our tour started with a walk through the outer areas of the Palace, part of which forms the official winter residence and workplace of the President of Austria. Through the centuries, the palace has housed some of the most powerful people in European and Austrian history, including monarchs of the Habsburg dynasty who were rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. According to Herbert, the Palace has 2,600 rooms, 150 wings, 150 courtyards and sits on 131 acres. Boy, I sure wouldn’t want to be in charge of cleaning this place. After WWI they started renting out some of the 1 bedroom apartments and, today, a 750 square foot apartment goes for about 600 euros. Pretty pricey to live in the Imperial Palace.

He, then, gave us an overview of what is contained in the Palace, one of the most famous being the Spanish Riding School . A traditional riding school for Lipizzan horses, it’s the oldest of its kind in the world, dating back to the Hapsburg Monarchy in 1572. Not only is it a center for classical dressage, the headquarters is a tourist attraction that offers public performances as well as permitting public viewing of some training sessions.

A few statistics….Vienna, the capital and largest city of Austria, is its primary city, with a population of about 1.8 million, which is nearly one third of Austria’s population. Vienna is also the cultural, economic, and political center of Austria and, until the beginning of the 20^th century, it was the largest German-speaking city in the world. Today, it has the second largest number of German speakers after Berlin and in 2001 the city center was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Vienna is well known for having played an essential role as a leading European music center, from the great age of Viennese Classicism through the early part of the 20^th century and is often regarded as the "City of Music" because of this musical legacy . It’s also said to be “The City of Dreams” because it was home to the world’s first psycho-analyst, Sigmund Freud.

Evidence has been found of continuous habitation of Vienna since 500 BC, when the site on the Danube River was settled by the Celts. In 15 BC, the Romans fortified the frontier city to guard the empire against Germanic tribes to the north. Like the other two countries we had visited, Austria has had a long, fascinating and complicated history, worthy of studying and, today, over 3.7 million tourists visit the historic center of Vienna to marvel at this magnificent city with its Baroque castles and gardens and the late-19^th century Ringstrabe, lined with grand buildings, monument and parks.

Hector walked us by many of the historic sites and gave us a little history of each of them. He walked us by the most notable museums that he recommended we visit, the famous and beautiful Opera House and a very powerful and controversial sculpture, that’s part of the Memorial against War and Facism, called the Kneeling Jew . In the book, “The Texture of Memory,” the author refers to the statue as “The Street Washing Jew”, and explains that, after Auschwitz, local Jews were sent through the streets to scrub anti-Nazi graffiti off the buildings and cobblestones. With this statue, the sculpture, Alfred Hrdlicka, accuses those who stood by and did nothing.

We ended our tour at St. Stephen’s Cathedral, more commonly known as the Mother Church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Vienna and the seat of the Archbishop of Vienna. The current Romanesque and Gothic form of the cathedral stands on the ruins of two earlier churches, the first a parish church consecrated in 1147. It’s the most important religious building in Vienna and, with its multi-colored tile roof, has become one of the city’s most recognizable symbols.

After our tour, we got a bite to eat at one of the chic looking, and unbelievably expensive, cafés on the wide and bustling boulevard and, then, did a little window shopping, admiring the beautiful and pricey window displays . Afterwards, we called our trusted Uber Guy, Adam, who arrived within minutes to take us to the hotel where Rod and Priscilla were staying. We stocked up on groceries for the week, at the market next to their hotel and, then, headed back to the apartment, which was really quite lovely and comfortable, relaxed a little, then made a tasty dinner of Kielbasa, fries and salad. After playing a heated card game (Bill and I take our favorite games with us whenever we travel) we all retired as we had a lot of sightseeing planned for the next day.