Schloß Wilhelmshöhe

It’s another nice day here in Vienna, but with some clouds rolling in. A change of weather is in the air. We chatted at breakfast with a lovely couple from London, Ontario. They were heading off to tour a winery. After breakfast, we rendezvoused with Natalie, our tour guide, and 14 fellow travelers and set out to explore. Not many pictures – we were on the move most of the time. We covered about 20 kms.

We started by swinging through one of the university campuses with its interesting blend of new architectural styles, and then stopped at the Prater. The Prater was once an imperial hunting ground and only accessible for the aristocracy, until the Austrian Emperor Josef II donated the area to the Viennese in 1766 as a public leisure centre. It is now a huge outdoor amusement park with rides, haunted houses, a giant ferris wheel, a massive trampoline park, mini golf courses, and every type of junk food you could imagine. Then we headed to the Donauinsel which is a is a long, narrow artificial island that lies between the Danube River and the parallel excavated channel Neue Donau. The island is 21.1 km in length but is only 70–210 m wide. It was constructed from 1972 to 1988 primarily as a measure for flood protection. Vienna has been very proactive about conserving and creating green spaces for its 2.8 million citizens, and this is one of the jewels in its portfolio. The Neue Donau allows only pleasure craft (no commercial shipping) and has huge green areas, walking/biking trails, sandy beaches, a nudist beach, a rowing course (saw a regatta underway), an area of kite surfing, lots of fishing spots, and an overall calm feeling. It provides a real haven away from the crowds of the city.

We stopped for mid-morning coffee/tea/beer and then headed home, and then headed back to the ship. No wipe outs. No missing riders. All good!

We are going to be setting sail about 4:00 p.m. today. We were parked beside the pier when we set out this morning. We are now third from the pier because we have the earliest departure. This juggling of positions is known as “doing the maneuver”. One of our pier bunk mates is the Scenic Pearl, a twin of the Scenic Ruby. We were on the Pearl for our 2015 and 2019 cruises.

Time for lunch. You’ll be glad to know that we both had salads.

After lunch, we walked to the big church we saw on our moonlight stroll last night, the Church of St. Francis of Assisi. Unfortunately, it was only open until noon, so we opted to walk around the neighbourhood. It was mostly 1960’s uninspired concrete apartment buildings, boarded up stores, penny stores, tiny stores selling odd assortments of low-end goods, streets with litter (unlike the centre of Vienna), and not much else. We put on 10,000 steps and headed back to the ship.

We had our safety drill this afternoon. The deepest section of the Danube is 4 metres. The ship is 7 metres high. If it sinks, we all just go to the upper deck where we will still have dry feet.

This cruise takes us to seven countries. Time for the second one. We set sail for Bratislava, Slovakia. While we sailed, J.J. gave us the details of the excursion choices for the coming week. There 3-4 choices per day, so there is a lot of variety and something for everyone, regardless of energy or mobility level.

Dinner tonight was the Captain’s Gala. The captain greeted us and then had to get back to the wheelhouse – water levels are low and the margin for error in navigation is very small. We were all plied with champagne and hors d’oeuvres while the managers of the various areas of responsibility were introduced. The captain is important, but the head chef got the biggest round of applause. Then we toddled off for a six-course dinner. We shared lively conversation with a couple, Sherry and Barry, from Windsor who were celebrating their 34th wedding anniversary tonight.

By the end of dinner, we had docked in Bratislava. To wear off a bit of the six-course dinner, we climbed up the gangplank which put us right in the centre of Bratislava. The city was buzzing with activity. We were astounded to see so many families with young children strolling the streets so late, even if it was a Saturday night. Today’s step count – 15,300 plus lots of biking.Read more