Vibrant Vienna!

Our ship arrived in Vienna, Austria at 4am..or so they said..we have been so busy that we have no problem sleeping when we can! There was a lecture after breakfast entitled, “Timeless Vienna” by a local tour guide. Vienna is the capital and largest city in Austria with a population of about 1.8 million people and I think we saw just about every one of the them today! This city is regarded as the “City of Music” because of its musical legacy and also as the “City of Dreams” because it was the home of Sigmund Freud. 

Much of the lecture gave us information about the Habsburg Monarchy who ruled from 1282-1918. The Habsburg empire ruled over a vast area including Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia and larges parts of Poland and Romania as a well as some of Italy. Much of the focus today was on Maria Theresa who was the only woman ruler in the Habsburg dynasty. She began her rule in 1740 and in the meantime had 15 children! One of her sons, Franz Joseph ruled for 68 years and his wife Sisi was very poplular. We saw reverence to her in Hungary and Slovakia as well.The Monarchy collapased at the end of World War I.The Hasburgs are still in Vienna. Currently, Karl von Habsburg oversees the Austrian branch of the Order of the Golden Fleece and the Imperial and Royal Order of Saint George. 

During the Habsburg Monarchy, Vienna was called the “Imperial City” and it is quite something to see to this day. There are spectacularly ornate buildings everywhere and I lost track of what was what. We finally resorted to the viewpoint of if there is a cross on it, it’s a church and if not, well who knows!

We split up today. Don and Antonio went to visit the Klosterneuburg Monastery and wine tasting. Barb, Debby, Lori and I took the tour to the Schonbrunn Palace. This was the summer palace of the Habsburgs in the country which is now just barely on the outskirts of Vienna. Maria Theresa had some renovations done during her time and it is humongous. It has over 1,000 rooms and we only got to see 41 of them. I think the ultimate VRBO vacation would  be  to stay in one of these palaces for the weekend and see all of the rooms! Of course you would want to do this during the Spring or Fall because these monstrous places would probably be very cold and drafty and of course they don’t have any air conditioning! 

The decorating was all over the top baroque with real gold in the paint, beautiful chandeliers and very ornate. Almost all of the rooms had large enclosed ceramic wood stoves which I have never seen before. I think they had around 2,000 servants here to handle everything! 

Don and Antonio enjoyed the Monastery and basically had a private tour as there were only two other people with them. It is still an active Monastery where the monks make the wine. The tour guide had to open and lock every door to the rooms that they toured, I guess to make sure that tourists don’t get lost and end up where they shouldn’t be.  They enjoyed the wine, mostly white in this area but one red. Don purchased a bottle (or two!) which we later enjoyed on the ship later.  I usually don’t like white wine but this was very good. Too bad you can’t find their wine in the US. 

We all met up again in Vienna and set out to find the restaurant for lunch. Our friend, Craig lives in Vienna and teaches music at an American school here and was able to meet us. It was great to see him! We walked around the city for a bit but unfortunately we didn’t have time to tour any of the many museums.There were several people out and about today because tomorrow is  Nationalfeiertag (National Day) celebrating the signing of the Federal Constitutional Law on the Neutrality of Austria. The ironic thing is that they were setting up all of their military equipment in the Heldenplatz for display and recruitment of youth seeking employment. I guess you still need the military to stay neutral..

After dinner on the ship we were treated to a wonderful concert by a violin, cello and piano trio. They played several pieces composed by Viennese composers as well as waltzes composed by Mozart. Professional dancers were there also to show us how to waltz. They made it look very easy! Later they asked for couples to move to the dance floor and receive a waltz lesson. Of course I made Don go out there so that Barb and Antonio would follow. Those too really know how to do it and didn’t need the lesson. Don and I…well..we’re not ready for the professional circuit just yet!

A very busy day in a large and bustling city!

Klosterneuburg Monastery

The tomb of St. Leopold in the Klosterneuburg Monastery

Good wine!

Schonbrunn Palace

The big star is for the Christmas Market that they are setting up.

Bronco fans are everywhere. This guy is part of the set up crew and smiled when I yelled, “go Broncos!”

Outstanding chandeliers and frescos

One example of the ceramic wood stoves in most rooms in the palace

The palace garden

3 of the 4 princesses!

Sites of downtown Vienna…

You can pay to play this piano in one of the squares.

Lunch with Craig

Setting up the military display for National Day

Waltzing concert

Aww..Bratislava!

We cruised all night and through breakfast until we got to the Gabcikovo Lock which is the second largest on the Danube. It was very interesting watching the whole process again. 

We didn’t arrive in Bratislava, Slovakia until the afternoon.  After we arrived, a local historian, Dr. Nora Grancay came abourd and presented, “Velvet Revolution and the Making of Slavakia.” She was an excellent speaker and gave us a short history of Slavakia and how they came to have a democratic government now. 

Slovakia was part of Czechoslovakia from 1918 until 1993. From 1952 the country was under Soviet Union control and the “Iron Curtain” was created between Slovakia and the West. Austria is only a few kilometers away so a fence was put up between Austria and Slovakia since Austria was considered ‘the west.” 500,000 people were able to escape before the “curtain” went up.

Many people were happy with communism at first because everyone was guaranteed a place to live and had food to eat. It was illegal to not have a job so if you didn’t have one, you were assigned a job even if the job didn’t really exist. However, nothing is free and the Slovakian people realized that they had lost their personal freedoms, especially the freedom of speech. For example, one time Dr. Grancay’s (our speaker’s) father made an offhand comment “the only good communist was the one six feet under.” The wrong person overheard this and so he lost his job at the university and certain privledges were taken from the entire family such as the ability to go to college. She is the first person in her family since then that was able to attend university. Her young daugher’s generation will be the first to have not known life  living under communism. After hearing this I thought about why some of the older people we have come across, especially in Bulgaria, seem grumpy. Maybe it just takes time for people who lived through it to learn to express their emotions freely.

On January 1, 1989, Slovakia and Czechoslavkia separated peacefully. Some call this the “Velvet Divorce.”  Czechoslavakia is now called the Czech Republic. Our tour guide said both countries get along except for once a year when the hockey championships are played!

Later we enjoyed a walking tour of Bratislava which is the capital of Slovakia.  Barb and Antonio had visited here in the early nineties with our parents. This was shortly after the country had become independent and Barb remembers that it was a sleepy little town. Now it is bustling with many shops and a mass transit train. We enjoyed walking around the historic area of Bratislava and even got to taste Sachartorte which is a deliciously dense cake that originated in Vienna.

On the top deck while we’re in the lock with another ship

Our first look at Bratislava

American Embassy

Brother and Sister -Sculpture inspired by European fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm

Hans Christian Anderson sculpture

Emperors New clothes sculpture on the back

Plague sculpture

During communism they were not allowed to import coco-cola so they made their own version called Kofola.

Mozart performed his first concert at this cafe when he was 6 years old. 

The Little Mole is a beloved cartoon character by Slovakian children. Their version of Mickey Mouse

They unofficially call this the “pee pee” fountain!

Sachartorte

Don tried the Kofola

Cumil the Sewer Worker sculpture

With thought this was a jewelry store - turns out they sell gelato!

This is a restaurant above a bridge. Locals call it the “UFO”

Our home away from home