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.

Grand Tour

 Like the gentry of old, we have embarked on our Grand Tour. We had an early start so that we could be ready for the driver to collect us. The doorbell rang and as I opened it, I did a double-take. I looked at the driver and he looked at me. "Are you...?" we both spluttered. The driver turned out to be Steve, who is married to Gillian, Pete's sister. We loaded the carriage and set off for Heathrow, chatting about our families the whole way. It was a convoluted route chosen by the SatNav, but the drivers are not permitted to deviate from the route selected by the magic box.

We arrived soon after 10:00 and whistled through the check-in and security procedures before making our way to one of the lounges to await our flight. We suffered the usual inconvenience of being bussed to the aircraft and then settled down in our seats for the flight to Vienna. We hit some serious potholes as the plane climbed out of Heathrow, but most of the journey was fine (though the seats were dreadfully uncomfortable). At Vienna, we were met by the SAGA rep and taken to our transfer coach... where we waited and waited while two stragglers were eventually herded onto the coach and we set off through the rush hour traffic. We were dropped by the gangplank of our our home for the next week, boarded, and were shown to our cabin.

We are sailing on The Spirit of the Danube, which is only 2 years old. It is quite delightful and very long! It has 95 cabins and a crew of 48. We dropped our stuff in the cabin and headed back to the bar to settle down with a cold beer with Jane and Trevor. We sat and chatted until it was time to go for dinner.

Dinner was excellent with a coconut prawn cake to start and a wonderful pork tenderloin for the main dish. We followed this with a Rum Baba. The wine waiter kept our glasses topped up throughout the meal. 

Finishing dinner, it seemed like time for a walk. We met up by reception and disembarked to walk along the dock passing all of the river cruise boats lined up for the night or awaiting their passengers. 

We turned back and headed towards our boat. The Cathedral was floodlit and shimmered across the road from the dock.

FInally, we returned to the boat and explored the top deck before retiring for the night.

It has been a good first day, though the travel consumed most of it.