Sunday, October 4, 2015
I had a great nap yesterday afternoon. I spent part of the
afternoon with the window wall open and saw jets landing over the Danube at
Vienna’s airport. I was amazed at the miles of fishing shacks and cabins lining
the banks with big Chinese-style fishing nets. I wonder what they catch with
those nets? If there is some seasonal
fish run they use them for? I got dressed when I thought I could see that we
were approaching the newest lock below Vienna. I was premature but stayed out
front and up top until just before dinner as we were exiting the lock. It was
different technology than we had seen before. We couldn’t see the water source
filling the lock and there was a rotary gate at the upper end. It had
traditional swing gates at the lower end. I love locks! I believe Simona said
this one raised us 12 meters. I believe she also said there were something like
over 60 locks between Budapest and Amsterdam.
Dinner was Viennese. It was good there was a pumpkin terrine
appetizer with ham that was quite tasty. The soup was so-so. The Wiener
schnitzel was pork with potatoes and was quite good. They served a Gruner
Veltliner with it so I was happy. Tomorrow is supposed to be a Viennese buffet
dinner. I don’t know what that will entail. We’ll see. We have a very long and
full day tomorrow.
For unknown reasons, we didn’t sleep too well last night. I
don’t know why because we got to dock alone last night without any extra boats
tied alongside. The alarm woke Clay this morning. I had been more or less awake
for the previous 2 hours and just resting. We found the Internet wifi was down
this morning. The front desk was supposed to get an IT guy out of bed to get it
back up but it is 1pm now and it is still down. Hopefully, it will be back up
soon. We had a morning bus and walking tour. I am so glad that we spent extra
time in Budapest and had spent nearly a week here before because we aren’t
getting much of an experience through the river cruise. How are you going to
experience central Vienna in a couple of hours? On Sunday morning! We left this
dock well North of central Vienna at 8:15am. It was 8:30am before we started
driving because it took that long to walk past all the other docked river boats
to reach where the buses could park. Then they had to drive down one at a time
to turn around and then leave in a crowded single lane. We drove for a long
time before we reached the area where we passed a couple of dozen other
riverboats docked during dinner last night. They weren’t too far from the
Prater. I am sure it was after 9am before we saw the Ring road. Our first stop
was about 20 minutes to walk to the Hundertwasser House and back to the bus. I
bought a patch there and Clay smashed a 2 cent Euro coin. We learned today why
there are Hundertwasser toilets in a remote part of the North Island of New
Zealand. The artist/architect wanted to be buried there and was. I guess he
also took the time to design some public toilets but the guide didn’t mention
that. We drove around and then the bus dropped us in front of the Albertina. We
had an hour. She guided us to Stephansdom and gave us about 30 minutes of free
time. Nothing was open but souvenir shops and coffee shops and church was in
service. We still peaked inside. Clay bought some Mozartkugels in the subway
and saved 3 Euros over the price from the souvenir shops above. I bought a
Starbucks mug near the Lipizzaners’ stables. We bought a red and a white Sturm
from a stand set up outside the basilica. I liked the red better! Then we
realized how big the servings were and how much time we had left and we bought
a big pretzel to share too. I asked the guide and she claimed that Must was the
first press and just juice with no alcohol (but I am sure I was drunk on it
before) and that Sturm is after 3 days of fermentation with a little alcohol.
It was really good in either event. We were back to the ship by noon for lunch.
We didn’t even check the restaurant this time. We just went right to the lounge
for the light buffet. They had spicy fried noodles and Alfredo rotini. I am
going to regret eating pasta for lunch every day! I told Clay that 3 out of 3
is a miracle and I am sure to run into something I won’t eat there soon. We
leave for our afternoon Schonbrunn Palace tour at 2pm. We should be back by
5:30pm. Dinner is an Austrian buffet from 6 to 8pm. We leave again at 7:15pm
for a bus transfer to the Sound of Vienna concert in the cheap seats at the
Kursalon. We are expected to be back aboard by 10:30pm and the boat sails at
midnight for Durnstein.
5:30pm and back from Schonbrunn tour. It took 45 minutes
driving each way to get there and get back so it was a quick tour. You’d have
hated for this to be your time in Vienna! You’d have thought that at least they
would have arranged to pick up the people who wanted to stay in town from the
morning for the afternoon tour, but no. After Bratislava and Vienna, I am very
happy I guess that most of these places coming up we’ve already been. I’m also
prepared for disappointment in visiting some of the places in France that we’ve
never been. I don’t remember feeling like port time was this short on other
river cruises before. You can’t see anything of a major city in a couple of
hours!
Internet is still out or the wifi is anyway. It sounds like
they have no hope of restoring it at this point, so I’ll keep typing up these
notes, but I have no idea when these entries might get posted to the blog.
Sorry. No Internet access is inconvenient for us too.
We enjoyed the Kursalon entertainment last night. They had a
small 12 piece orchestra with a male and a female singer and a male and a
female ballet dancer. The singers and dancers never performed together and some
songs were just the musicians. It was lively. They played about 50 minutes then
had a 15 minute intermission where they provided a glass of either orange
juice, bad champagne or water and restrooms, then part 2 lasted about the same
amount of time. We were back onboard Amadeus Silver II by 10:30pm. I think we
sailed around 11:30pm. We were well under way when I got up to look at midnight.
The weird thing is that a number of people took off at various points in the
day to get a chance to spend some quality time in Vienna. It was a good idea
since we spent the bulk of our day busing back and forth 3 times! But Simona
said on day one that departure times were rigid and inflexible, to know before
you leave or they’ll leave you if you’re 5 minutes late. The program said
departure/all aboard was midnight. When we returned in the morning, they had
out 2 signs that said 10:30pm. Now keep in mind that at least half our bus did
not come back on the bus this morning! After lunch, the signs had been changed
and said 11:30pm. Still the people who stayed in town are working form the
midnight time in the program! I hope they left after the last passengers
reboarded! So much for departure times being rigid though. If they change the
time and announce and post it after you have left the boat I don’t know how you
can be responsible for being on time or late!
It is Monday morning and still no Internet.
