The Splendor of Vienna

In the morning we took a bus tour of Vienna, driving by the concert hall of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the opera house, the city hall, the coffee shop frequented by Sigmund Freud, and many other places. As we walked to St. Stephen's Church, we toured the HofburgPalace, and went by the house of Franz Josef Haydn, the court musician to the Hapsburgs. Although the cathedral was magnificent, it had been decorated with ultraviolet light, and garish blue modern art. We took a few photos just to prove that we had been there. We happened to find Sacha in front of the church and asked him if there were a good coffee shop nearby. He mentioned one a couple of blocks away. We went there and enjoyed a good apple streusel and a cup of coffee. The streusel was not much different from good pastries I have eaten at home. The coffee, though, was magnificent. It was not as strong as espresso, but much stronger than any other "American" coffee I have ever tasted. When we had been there just a few minutes Sacha joined us. He and I got into another discussion on Mithraism, a subject in which he seems passionately interested. After lunch on the ship, I went to tour the Schoenbrunn Palace, the summer palace of Maria Theresa, (or "Theresia," as she is known here). Again, the magnificence of the palace was overwhelming. Another tourist and I kept wondering where she actually lived, this is to say, where did she spend her private time. There were two relatively small rooms near the corner off from her bedroom. Our best guess was that these smaller rooms may actually have been her "nest." Afterwards we had an hour free to ourselves. Since we could not take photographs above stairs, I got some shots out in the garden. Glenda cared more for the excursion with Chef Denes into Vienna to shop in the food markets. She brought back several goodies for me for the market, including a kind of Austrian cheese called "bergkase," or "mountain cheese." It was stinky, strong and delicious. After supper we went back to the palace, this time to the redoubt room for a concert of Viennese music by yet Vienna Residents Orchestra. Most of the pieces were by Mozart and Strauss, with a flute duet accompanied by orchestra by Doppler, and a movement for the unfinished symphony by Brahms. I had to pinch myself to believe that I was in Vienna, in the Hapsburg Palace, listening to the music of Mozart and Haydn. The room was recently restored after a fire destroyed it. It is the same hall in which John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khruschev met for the Vienna Summit in June 1961. The man seated next to Glenda insisted on stomping his feet in time with the music, shaking the floor and disturbing all of us around him. On this, trip wonder follows,wonder. My "wow meter" pegged out a long time ago back in Cologne. After the concert it was raining as we headed for the bus. When we returned to the ship about 11 pm, Chef Denes had prepared for us a nighttime snack of Hungarian goulash, and champagne.Read more