Springtime in Vienna

While Robert and I were off exploring neighbouring countries, spring has sprung in Vienna.  We left bare trees which were barely budding, dry fountains, and empty flower beds and returned to colourful gardens, blooming flowers and chirping birds.  It is stunning!

We returned to Vienna on Monday morning and met Markus' mom for lunch at the Belvedere.  It is another palace with a beautiful garden.  The palaces are now art galleries which we did not check out but certainly the gardens were lovely and will be even more stunning when they are finished.   Apparently the gardens in Vienna all have a theme/colour scheme each year.  We found a couple of rogue flowers though.

Afterwards, we went shopping and just had to try on lederhosen and dirndl's for the photo op.  

Tuesday, we visited Stadt Park, the largest municipal park in Vienna.  It was amazing to me how many people were in the park on a Tuesday morning  - classes of young kids playing on the playground equipment, older kids having a phys ed lesson, people walking their dogs, old men reading newspapers on the benches that lined all the pathways.

 The Kursalon, which hosts dinner dance music shows was next door so Robert and I had a waltz before entering the park.

Johann Strauss

Mozart

Before leaving the park, we stopped at a cafe for a drink.  I tried Tanya's coffee as it felt wrong to leave Vienna without trying some of it's famous coffee but I still don't enjoy coffee.  I much preferred my Hugo (white wine, elderflower syrup, soda water, lime and mint leaves, if I'm not mistaken) and the fresh and warm apricot cake the waiter talked us into was divine.

After a final lunch in the park of the Palmenhaus while eating one last Bitzringer sausage, we headed to Danube Island park for a stroll.

Later, we took the tram through the sights of the Ringstraß before heading to Hundertwasser House, an apartment building and small village designed by famous Austrian painter and architect Freidensreich Hundertwasser.  He believed that curved lines and colours provided happiness to the soul and was a huge proponent of reusing and recycling, using old and new within his designs.  He also designed this with the idea of humans and nature living together in harmony .

Since we had now seen absolutely everything on the must-see lists of Vienna, we decided to head home.  Markus' dad came over for a quick visit to bring us copies of photos he had taken of us at the festival we attended our first night in Austria .  Then Markus and Tanya took us out for a nice dinner at a very typically Austrian restaurant before we played a final game of Poker Dice  (sort of like Yahtzee but witb poker hands) and headed to bed as we had a taxi coming at 430 am to bring us to the airport and back to reality.

Other than only having 5 minutes between our flight from Vienna landing and our flight out of Brussels boarding, at a very different location about a 15 minutes walk away from each other with passport control and a huge duty free shop in between, to arrive at the gate to learn we also needed new boarding passes and to answer security questions, our first flight was fairly uneventful.   I did have a final Viennese encounter with a woman at security before leaving Vienna though .  I guess she wanted to make sure I remembered that the people in Vienna are not like the Von Trapp family.  Then on our Brussels to Newark flight, the wife of the man in front of Robert basically asked him to cut off his legs so that her husband could recline his seat further.  "We all have the same space " says the woman who wouldn't even be 5 feet tall and her husband who was all of 5'5" maybe.  It took a long time to explain to her that Robert can't do anything about his knees blocking the recline of her husband's seat.  And my in-seat entertainment system crashed midway through a movie and they couldn't fix it.  Once we arrived in Newark, Robert had to go through secondary passport control as he was a name match.  When we began boarding the Newark to Chicago flight, they were requesting that people check their roller bag carryons through to their final destination as the flight was full.  Robert volunteered to do so even though we were in an early boarding group and wouldn't have had problems ourselves.   Guess what?!  We arrived in Traverse City with all the bags except that one.  And that one was the one we needed for the night.  It was still in Chicago.  Luckily we ended up booking a cheap room when the airline added the extra connection in Newark to our itinerary so hopefully the bag arrives on the 10 am flight as promised.....Then we head home...home sweet home...

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music

Or they have been since we arrived back in Austria.  Today we visited Melk and Durnstein in the Wachau Valley region of Austria.  The scenery is stunning with mountains, greenery, blossoms starting to bloom on the trees, the wineries, the castles and colourful houses.  It is totally right out of The Sound of Music so Robert keeps playing Edelweiss and Doe-a-Deer on his phone as we wander the forests and hills of the region.

Our first stop this morning was Melk, which has been home to the renowned Benedictine Abbey since 1736.  The monastic community of Melk is over 900 years old.   Before that, it was a palace.  It was stunning and full of some amazing artifacts.  Our guide was very knowledgeable and was quite funny at times but he provided us with way too much information for my brain to absorb.  After having 2 guided tours in the past couple of days, I've decided I much prefer Tanya's tour guiding; she tells us the things we want to know, makes up stories when she doesn't know the answer (she had Robert convinced that one of the churches we saw in Vienna was built by Captain Von Trapp's brother who became a priest so that he didn't have to come out to his family), and otherwise just happily babbles away.  We were disappointed that we were not allowed to take photos inside the Abbey as there were some stunning rooms (I may have actually drooled in the library).

After the tour, Robert and I explored the little town and had a look in some of the cute shops before heading back to our ship.

After lunch, the ambitious group headed out on bicycles to bike from Melk to our next stop, Durnstein, but Robert and I chose to admire the gorgeous scenery from the Sky Deck.  We biked Mackinaw Island a couple of years ago to fulfill one of the items on my mother's bucket list and my butt is just now recovering!  The funny thing is, when Robert started talking about taking a river cruise, he was looking at the Viking River Cruises.  With his accent, though, I thought he told me he wanted to do a "Biking Cruise" from Budapest to Vienna and I thought he had lost his mind; there was no way I was going to ride a bicycle from Budapest to Vienna.

Apparently the currents were strong so we arrived in Durnstein earlier than expected.  I had told Robert I wanted to climb up to the ruins of Kuenringerburg Castle.  It was in this fortress that Richard the Lionheart was secretly imprisoned during the Third Crusade.  When he was eventually released, his ransom was no less than a third of England's whole wealth!

It was a steep climb to 1,024 feet above sea level but it was so worth it for the amazing views.  We climbed up the main pathway but on our return to town, we scrambled down the well-worn cobblestoned steps, not an easy task for someone who tends to be clumsy and is terrified of heights.  There were no guard rails or trees positioned well to use for assistance.  I knew I should have bought a set of hiking poles like all the Austrians use for all their walks!  But you should all be happy to learn that we both survived and Robert, who was questioning my desire to do the walk and wishing for the 'gentle walkers' option partway up, was also smiling and proud of our accomplishment upon our return to the boat.

Tonight was our farewell dinner.  We were joined by a nice elderly couple from Montreal who sat at the far end of our table a couple of nights ago.  Robert was happy to order lobster as a bonus tonight and the baked Alaska parade is always great fun.  We then danced a bit in the lounge and I  am pretty sure there was a man taking pics of us ...

Tomorrow we return to Tanya and Markus for another 2 nights before our return home and a giant jolt into reality....a few extra feet of reality by the sounds of it...