Vacation 2018 Europe: Day 10 Vienna, Austria

Day 10

Vienna, Austria

Wednesday, October 10, 2018

After traveling the Wachau Valley yesterday, we visit Vienna today.

Here's a short highlight of what this city has to offer:

"Renowned as the "City of Waltzes," Austria's capital city of Vienna is Europe's center of classical music. Strauss and Mozart composed many of their finest pieces here . (Viking Guide, p. 28)

Our tour guide, Gabriella, took us by bus to many sites of the city.

Our first stop:

360 view of the Maria Theresa Plaza

Length: 00:00:20 sec.

In the middle of the Maria Theresa Plaza sits Maria Theresa, "the only female ruler of the Hapsburgs. Her extraordinary reign featured many military campaigns and domestic reforms in medicine, education and civil right." (Viking Guide, p. 30)
She had 16 children, five of them became rulers of the empire.

On the right side (west) of the Plaza is the museum of science.

On the left side (east) of the plaza is the museum of art.

Across the street is the Hofburg Palace, winter residence of the Hapsburgs and home of the Spanish Riding School with its Lipizzaner horses..
It was on the balcony in the center of the photo where Hitler announced his dominance over Austria.

As we continue our tour we see more of the palace.

Much to say and lots to listen and to pay attention.

A video of the surroundings around the entrance of the Hofburg Palace.

Length: 00:00:24 sec.

Leaving the Hofburg Palace and heading toward St. Stephan's Cathedral.
You can see the entrance to Hofburg Palace at the end of the street.

On our way we passed by this monument.

The heart of downtown is where you'll find St. Stephan's cathedral.

Another view of St. Stephan's Cathedral.

That's Nelson Hahn (foreground center) and his wife, Sharon (far left and bottom corner).

Surrounding our guide, Gabriella.
The tour ended here at St. Stephan's.

Inside St. Stephan's Cathedral.

On our way to lunch a very funny thing happened.
One of our party, Jeff Stinehelfer, walked by these Door men and gave them a "high five".
When Nelson came by he also extended his hand, but they noticed his missing finger and said, "High four for you."
Just as quick as that and we were gone.
I asked Nelson if he would mind going back to get a picture, because I thought that was so witty of them to come up with "high four" as quickly as they did.
When we came back to photograph them they were still talking about Nelson's hand.
They said, "We should've said "High three" because you only had three fingers."
You can tell they were still thinking about it just by the way they posed for the picture.
That was a moment I'm glad we were able to capture.

Eating a little snack for lunch at the "Paumen haus"

This is the restaurant where we at lunch.

After lunch we split up.

Jan and Sharon went with Sue and John and visited the Opera House:

This turn of the century guest looks very much like Jan.

Inside the Opera House.

Another photo just can't quite capture the feeling as when you're actually live and in person.

Nelson and I went on a self-guided tour as follows:

First we got our bearings and headed for St. Stephen's Cathedral

St. Stephan's Cathedral

Once we recognized the "Gothic St. Stephan's Cathedral, crowned with a gleaming spire and colorful roof tiles"
(Viking Guide, p. 29) we could navigate with the map.

Our first stop was the park with the statue of Strauss

We had to cross the "Ringstrasse (Ring Street), the gracious boulevard laid out on the site of the old city walls in the mid-19th century." (Viking Guide, p. 29)

Nice park.

We had a guest take our picture.

She was from Shanghai, China on a business trip/conference in a nearby hotel.

Next we found on the map the statue of Mozart

Statue of Mozart on the map.

Statue of Mozart in person.

On the way to the statue of Mozart we found some interesting sites.

We stopped by one of the hotels and found a mall and a market in the basement.

I was fascinated by the color and displays of food.

We also noticed the private and public gardens surrounding the Imperial Palace.

After finding the Mozart statue we continued our self-guided tour...
continuing on the Ringstrasse...

Back at the entrance to the Imperial Palace.
Where is it?

Oh, there it is!

We stopped by on the other side of the street and took a picture from the entrance to the Art Museum which is located on the Marie Theresa Plaza.

Continuing on through the parks we made our way to the documents center with the five spires.

The documents building.

Public park on the way to the documents building.

Finally made it to the documents building.
Time to head back to St. Stephan's Cathedral.

Cool buildings along the way.

Almost there, but we're a bit early.
Um, we were thinking about getting a little treat before we arrive on time.
We decided against it and had a discussion about delayed gratification and marshmallows.