Oh Vienna

I was awake early, very early. I forced myself to stay in bed rather than risk waking Di. We met up with Jane and Trevor in the Panorama Restaurant for breakfast and made sure we ate well so that we wouldn’t need to stop for lunch. After breakfast, we joined the rest of the passengers for an introductory briefing in the lounge. This was (surprisingly) quite interesting. One impressive gizmo that we all have in our cabins is the QuietVox device. This allows you to read an interactive map by zapping icons on the map; provides a commentary as the ship sails along the river by linking to the GPS to inform you what can be seen at that point; and it provides a link to your guides as they escort you around the various destinations.

We had the rest of the morning to ourselves so the four of us headed across to the Jubilee Church of Assisi. It is the church we can see from the boat so it only took about 5 minutes to get there. It was stunning with buttresses, towers, and domes all seemingly intersecting and creating fascinating rooflines. We made our way around the building and then entered through a side door. It was a large church with a simple but inspiring interior. We spent quite a long time wandering around before we managed to drag ourselves away.

From the church, we crossed the Danube to the island. This island is a green space with walkways and cycle tracks, picnic areas and playgrounds. It stretches for 21km and is used extensively by the Viennese. 

After a walk, we returned across the bridge and settled down on the top deck of our boat. We grabbed a sandwich at lunchtime and then joined up with our respective groups for our tour of Vienna.

The first part of the tour was by bus. We wound our way through the city with a guide pointing out all of the places of note. When we arrived at the historic heart of the city, we left the buses and were split into smaller groups for a walking tour with a guide who spoke to us through the QuietVox. This worked really well and seemed to manage quite a range. We headed up towards St Stephen’s Cathedral with all of the sites of note pointed out on the way. Somewhere along the route, I managed to drop my sweater and though I went back to look for it, it had gone. Doh!

Vienna is beautiful. There is no doubt about it. It is also immensely photogenic.

We made our way back to the pickup point independently of the group. Diane wanted to stop at the Gelateria which was reputedly the best in the city. This posed a problem. The menu was all in German and with the exception of vanilla and banana, everything else was hidden behind German words which I didn’t recognise. This isn’t good enough. They seem to have their own words for most things, you’d think they didn’t speak English!

Back on the boat, we had a quick drink in our room while getting ready for the evening reception. The reception was very similar to the introductory meeting we had last night. The Cruise Director introduced the Captain and he introduced the heads of department, then we had a briefing on tomorrow's excursions. We sat with Jane and Trevor and a couple, Carol and Ian, we had met at the airport. They seem to be positive, funny, charming folk and have just slotted into our group.

After dinner (Caesar Salad then Salmon, if you must know) we wrapped up and headed to the top deck to watch as the boat threw the shackles of Quay Number 4, and manoeuvred out into the Danube. We watched as the lights of Vienna slipped by and we slipped under its bridges to make our overnight escape towards Melk.