DAYS 14 & 15, 8-9 April. Vienna Austria

Day 14-

Today we are in Vienna- its a grey day but at least no rain. After breakfast we were taken out in coaches to the city for a tour. Its a surprisingly long way from the canal to the city, which is massive and spread out. The outskirts of Vienna have a lot of tagging and seemed certainly less glamorous than the central part. They have an open tagging allowance along the concrete canal walls, to try to deflect graffiti in other areas, so some of it is artistic but the rest is your usual NZ, Australian words which arent english- probably cos the kids who do it arent in school learning how to spell lol!

We had an awesome stop at a Schnapps museum and distillery at 9.30am where we learnt all about the Fischer family who began it all. They have had a lot of stars through as well- there is a photo of Hugh Grant looking absolutely blotto, but very happy on the wall and Marilyn Manson. We were invited to sample the many types and flavoura after the tour- and they were yummy! Not really into alcohol after breakfast but it certainly burnt away some of my cold bugs haha! We bought a bottle of chilli schnapps which actually tasted like bananas to me (work that out?!) 112 proof and definitely not for the faint hearted, but its very smooth. Graeme also sampled the "Green Fairy" and thought he might be able to fly like one afterwards! They had some funny t-shirts too which we both got one of.






After the sampling we were into town for a guided walking tour. The centre of town is incredibly opulent and the millionaires mile sports clothes and jewellery that noone would afford! The buildings are of mammoth proportions- the sheer size of each building is like a block or more.

We also saw where the famous white spanish dancing horses live and train - smack bang in the middle of the city. They are beautiful and gracious with a history dating back to the 1500's I think.


The photo of the lamp shades is by a company called Demels and everything in the demos are edible! This is on millionaires mile so maybe we could all afford one strand?!

Back to the ship and an easy afternoon, just getting on top of this bug- a lot of the people on our bus are down with it too, thanks to the explosive coughing and sneezing one or two were doing on the 5 hours on the bus the other day. Still, will build immunity I guess.

We had an early dinner tonight as we were booked for the Vienna Orchestra concert. We are very lucky they put on a private 1 hour concert - just 9 of them and 3 opera singers. It was in the military museum, which is an amazing building with painting and statues everywhere - where they had champagne served in the foyer under the statues of all the great Viennese military leaders since the 1400's. We had front row seats and it was fantastic! Even those who arent really into Classical music and or opera, thought it was magical! Dad you would have so Loved it - their talent is music to your ears- literally. Everything from their clothing to the shininess of the mens shoes, showed the pride and respect of the Vienna Orchestra. An hour went by in mins it seemed, then we were off to see the city lit up at night. Well worth the night out.

Day 15-

Up and into Vienna today for a free day roaming. Its great they provide shuttle buses in and out of town for us.
We wandered the streets, there are watch shops everywhere! Graeme bought a fountain pen in a great shop to add to his writing collection. It was like stepping back into yesteryear.

We had lunch with friends from the ship in a pizza place in a really old ex granary with a cool brick domed ceiling. The pizza slices were massive!

Its a beautiful blue sky day today and it got to 15C, positively hot - haha! We went back to the ship then dinner at the captains table tonight (should be quiet as he doesnt speak much english) No, it was very good as Petra the cruise director, interpreted!