Monday, September 5, 2011–Vienna Austria

We wanted to take a day trip by bus and boat on the Danube River for Tuesday but with the rain coming in we thought we should probably wait to be sure of the weather. Later on we decided to see what the weather would be in the morning and go see if space was available.

After talking with the tourist agents about the trip on the Danube River to the Wachau wine area it started raining.  We got off the subway and it was raining. We didn’t exactly know where we were and was walking around trying to see something familiar when we ducked in this covered walkway. Well as it turned out, the covered walkway had some glass it windows and I realized there were white horses in some stables – it was the Lipizzaner Stallions!!! We finally figured out where we were and after watching them for a while we went on to our mission of finding a tour to Budapest. We came out of the tourist office and it was raining harder. Of course, all the bars and pubs were filled up with people getting out of the rain. Finally, we saw an area with some construction around it and saw an Australian Bar. Because of the construction covering up the walkway it was not full. We tried the “special of the day” VB, Victoria Bitters. I don’t know much about Australian beers so it was good in my opinion.  Since it wasn't crowded we talked with the bartender. The bartender was a young man from France, near Grenoble. His English was excellent. He told us he has worked in Sweden, Australia and now Vienna. After we finished our beer the rain stopped and the temperature dropped. We had a very comfortable night with the low in the mid 50s.  Good sleeping weather.

Lipizzaner Stallions in their stables.

    

    

 

This is our tram stop.  It has an elevator so we don’t have to take stairs to get to the street level.  Most of the stations have escalators and/or elevators and are more up-to-date than Paris.

The is the famous Sachertorte.  Invented by Franz Sacher in 1832.  It is a chocolate cake with 2 layers of apricot jam under the chocolate icing and at the bottom and served with whipped cream.  The original is made and sold here at the Hotel Sacher Vienna.