Wednesday, October 17, 2018: Day 12: Vienna

This morning we awoke, had a continental breakfast at Arthur's and attended a status meeting at 8:45 am before we departed to tour Vienna. At the the meeting, we were told we would spend the night right where we are now (this place is packed full of river cruise boats who cannot go upstream or downstream). Tonight we pack and depart the ship for the last time in the morning. Our luggage will be taken to our hotel (Intercontinental Budapest) while we are bused to and tour Bratislava (Capital of Slovakia). We will then bus to Budapest and check in Thursday night. Friday we will be touring Budapest. Saturday, the tour ends and we will have most of the day to continue exploring Budapest. Sunday morning, I depart at 3:15 am for the airport and David departs at 6:15 am. We are both flying to Frankfort, but my flight to IAH leaves before his to DEN.

Today we started with a motor coach drive through of Vienna. Like most motor coach tours of cities, you always seem to be on the wrong side of the bus to see the interesting items. David elected to visit the Hofburg Palace, the winter home of the Habsburg monarchy. I selected to visit the summer Schonbrunn Palace.

They did not allow any pictures inside the palace, so I could only take photos of the exterior and the garden around back...which was impressive. We toured through 20 of the over 1,300 rooms of the palace.

The gardens around back reminded me of the St. Louis Forest Park World's Fair pavilion.

Back of the "house"

We then returned to rendezvous point in the center of the city. I met up with David and for the next three hours, we roamed Vienna.

We stopped in at the St. Stephen church.

Then we took a guided tour through the Vienna Opera House.

They have opera or ballet performances every evening. While we were there, they were preparing for tonight's opera Les Troyens (Hector Berlioz).

Opera House

We then walked over to the rendevous spot and had a coffee in a sidewalk cafe until the shuttle arrived to take us back to the ship. I put in 3.75 miles today.