Sun Aug 9 We arrived in the Vienna airport around 7pm and took the metro from the airport to the main train station. The only problem was that the station was so large that it had two names. We thought we’d be transferring to another subway line to reach our station but when we got off the first line, we discovered it was a long walk to the next line which turned out to be the central area of the station. In fact Dennis went to ask directions to our station only to learn that he was in it! Once again our hotel was right across the street from the station –quite convenient. We stayed at the Star Inn Hotel Premium Wein HB –a very nice hotel and extremely helpful staff. There was a grocery store right at the exit/entrance of the Hauptbahnhoff (station) and we picked up some salads and sandwiches for dinner in the room.

Mon Aug 10 We found a brochure at the hotel about some self-guided walking tours of the historic City Center and decided to give one of them a try. We started at the Opera House (always ornate buildings in Europe), Donnerbrunnen thunder fountain, and St. Stephans Cathedral which had a beautifully tiled roof with a unique zig zag design (the steep inclined alpine roof gave us a good view of it) and a 445 foot tower which until 1955 was used as a watchtower for fire alerts. Not far from the Cathedral we saw the Mozarthaus, Mozart's residence from 1784 to 1787. This building in Vienna's Old Town, is his only surviving Viennese residence. We walked down Graben Street which is one of the main streets in the city center. Graben means trench; this street was formed by filling in the trench that used to lie behind a Roman fortification wall. In the middle of the street is a large sculpture, the Pestsäule, a Holy Trinity column and was erected after the Great Plague epidemic in 1679; the Baroque memorial claims to be one of the most well-known and prominent sculptural pieces of art in the city. St Peters Church has a beautiful dome with twin towers. It is believed that it is built on the oldest Christian sacred site in Vienna. The current building dates from 1702. It is a Baroque Roman Catholic parish. Next was the Hofburg Wien, Vienna’s imperial palace. The Hofburg, for many centuries, was the official home of the rulers of the Habsburg Empire. Each successive Emperor has added to the opulence of the place. The famous family used to make this their winter home. In more modern times, this is now the official home of the President of Austria. This place can trace its history all the way back to 1279, as the official seat of one government or another. Like in Zurich, we were suffering from the mid-90’s heat and as the sprinklers in the plaza by the palace were on and over-spraying onto the sidewalks, we joined several others and wandered into the overspray to get misted and refreshed. Off that same Maria Theresien Platz was the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the plaza was adorned with numerous fountains and statues. We did not visit any museums on this day, just walked and oriented ourselves to the city. We wandered through Karlsplatz and Künstlerhaus (Artists’ house) where historically many of the artists resided. In the distance we could see the dome of the Secession building with its intertwined gold laurel leaves. It is referred to locally as the “golden head of cabbage”, but it is beautiful. The building is so-named because in 1892 several artists moved here from the established Kunstlerhaus to start a new era of art. We walked down Vienna’s version of the Hollywood walk of stars with tributes in the sidewalk to artists and musicians. Further along was Karlskirche, St. Charles Church, which has a beautiful distinctly elongated dome and two flanking columns of bas-reliefs. We found a statue of Johannes Brahms in the Karlsplatz area in the Resselpark. He moved to Vienna as an adult and remained there for the rest of his life. This is where he composed his major works. They say the statue is directly between his final apartment and the Musikverein where he worked for the final decade of his life. He would have walked next to the site of today’s statue every day. We saw so many sights on this walk –the Vienna Konzerthaus; an area where they had carted in sand for enjoyment of the locals – called Sand In The City; and a statue of Beethoven who came to Vienna in 1770, at the age of 22 and stayed until his death 35 years later. We enjoyed walking through the huge Stadt Park along the Vienna River and drinking some ice cold water from one of the public dispensers found throughout the city. In this park we saw the gold statue of Johann Strauss who was born in St. Ulrich, near Vienna, and is of course a very famous Austrian composer. Vienna was clearly concert composer central. We found a small outdoor seating restaurant with traditional Viennese food and had a delicious lunch of sausages.

In another effort to beat the heat, we planned an afternoon tour down the Danube from Melk to Krems. The hotel staff was particularly helpful in assisting us in deciding which tour to do and how to get there. We headed out to the metro for an hour long train ride into the The Wachau Valley (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), where the Danube River makes its way toward Vienna. This valley is filled with vineyards and dotted with cute villages. And the 24 mile stretch of the Wachau between the towns of Melk and Krems was written up as the prettiest area for such a cruise. The cruise lasted 2 hours including a quick change of boats part way through. The sights along the way included: the Benedictine Abbey in Melk, Willendorf -known among prehistorians as the town where the oldest piece of European art was found namely Venus of Willendorf -the well-endowed, 30,000-year-old fertility symbol, and Dürnstein where Richard the Lionhearted was imprisoned in the castle in 1193. All the while we sat in the shade with a cool river breeze flowing into the salon, sipping cold drinks, and snapping a photo here and there –so relaxing! Another more adventurous option is to bicycle along this area of the river; there was enough wind out that day that we were glad we had opted for the cruise. As we approached Krems there were small sandy areas along the riverbank where folks were enjoying sun bathing, swimming, and paddle boarding. Back in Vienna we were looking for a place for dinner and decided to go back to our luncheon spot that we liked so well (we would visit it a third time before we left).

Tues Aug 11 On the flight to Vienna, we were sitting next to a Vienna resident, formerly from the UK, who said to make sure we visited Belvedere Palace, especially since it was quite close to our hotel. So we started out this day with a walk to this palace. It is a beautiful complex of Baroque buildings, gardens, and water elements including a cascading fountain. It was the summer residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy. It is on a slight hill, giving a view out over the city. Heading back into town to the museum section, we passed the Fountain of Schwarzenbergplatz. In the afternoon we visited the Albertina and Kunsthistorisches museums –more Degas, Monet, Rodin (some of our favorites) as well as locals such as Gustov Klimt. The Kunst Museum building was exceptionally gorgeous. We wanted to walk through the Palace Gardens, The Burggarten, but the gardens were surrounded by a tall fence and we had a hard time finding an entrance. But we finally found it and really enjoyed walking the beautiful shaded grounds. Mozart was the artist honored with a statue here. Studying a map of the gardens, we decided we could walk through without having to double back to our entrance gate. When we had walked up to the far corner of the gardens where an entrance/exit was located, we were frustrated that we were not allowed to leave through that exit (the police were only allowing palace staff to use that exit) so it was back through the park again and the long way around to the metro.

Virginia was determined to have a cultural experience in Vienna. The Vienna opera and symphony groups were of course on vacation, but we purchased tickets to a performance of the Vienna Mozart Orchestra in the Musikverein. When we were escorted to our seats, we were amazed to find that we were on the stage –seated behind the orchestra, in folding chairs. Our first thoughts were that these were not very good seats, but since we had made a last minute purchase, what could we expect. While the location of our seats resulted in some loss of the blend of all the instruments, we actually had a quite interesting view of the performance as we were looking directly at the conductor and could see all the little moves and facial expressions he made to direct the orchestra. They played 10 pieces by Mozart. Several involved baritone and soprano soloists, one a violin soloist –all superb musicians. It was very enjoyable. A wonderful end to our stay in Vienna, one of our favorite cities in this sampling adventure.

Wed Aug 12 We flew from Vienna to Madrid.