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!
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