Visiting Vienna

Monday, June 17, 2019
Vienna, Vienna, Austria
Today comes real early (4:15 am to be exact) there are two things that get up Warren at that time - either a tee time or a plane to catch. As you can guess it was the latter. Happily everything was on time and we had breakfast in the business class lounge at the airport. AMA Waterways had arranged our transport, and also had a ground person at the airport to help the departing tour members get through the check-in, bags etc. Believe it or not we were the fourth couple to depart even at this early hour. 
The flight to Vienna was smooth and comfortable; after a cab ride to the Hotel Bristol, we checked in and the hotel had our room available early so we could recover from our early awakening. We are planning to have dinner tonight with Warren’s sister Susanne and her friend Marina. So while we are checking in we texted her to confirm our arrival and found out she was just walking by our hotel, so she joined us for a short visit to confirm dinner plans. It seems like a very small world sometimes. 
Our room at the Hotel Bristol is a magnificent, large, well appointed room and we decided to enjoy it for a rest and unpacking.  With renewed energy, we set out to explore Vienna.  We walked toward the Hofsburg Palace complex, originally the grand palace of the Habsburg empire that is now comprised of several museums, the Spanish Riding School, the government center and the historic Imperial Apartments where the rulers resided.  We wandered through parks along the way and found the Parliament and City Hall buildings. Unfortunately for us they are undergoing under major renovation. It seems like everywhere we have been there are signs of both new construction and/or major renovation. As one guide joked, their national bird is now the crane!  Visitors could neither enter nor see the facade of the Rathskeller and even large parts of the surrounding grounds were fenced off to house the temporary offices (3 stories high) that had been set up for offices during the renovation work.  It’s always disappointing to find sites we hoped to visit unavailable, but we are glad the community is restoring and maintaining these magnificent edifices for future generations to use and enjoy.  Along the way we always find some hidden jewels we did not expect.  Today’s was the lovely little Sluka Konditori near the Ratskeller that was unusually uncrowded because the construction had closed off its street.  We sat in the quiet outdoor dining area to enjoy a rest after our walk and sample a delicious Viennese torte. On the way back to the our Hotel we stop to admire St. Stephan's Cathedral and some artists at work sketching the Cathedral.  The cathedral is a magnificent Gothic building with stained glass windows and an ornate tile roof.
As it was warm and humid and we were tired from our early morning departure from Prague, we decided to return to our hotel for a rest before meeting Susanne and Marina for dinner.  They are staying at the famous Sacher Hotel, so we met them in the Sacher’s Blaue Bar for a drink followed by dinner in the Restaurant Rote Bar.  The Blaue Bar is of course all blue - walls, chairs, carpet, everything in a small intimate, lovely space. The Rote Bar is all red top to bottom, with impeccable service and delicious traditional Austrian cuisine. We enjoyed the Austrian speciality of veal schnitzel and a carrot and ginger soup, topped off with the famous Sacher Torte. The meal was fabulous and the setting was impressive. 
Also we had a great a great dinner conversation with Marina about our visit to the Communism Museum in Prague. She added some of her own stories and experiences, since as a small girl growing up in the Ukraine she has plenty of stories about the communist system.  One she remembers is that see was taught if there was a line forming, one should join it even though she had no idea what the she would be getting - at least there would be something!
We close our night with a short walk past the Opera House back to our hotel ready to regain some lost sleep from our early start.
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Brad
2019-06-22

You are the best!!!!

2025-02-14

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