10/13/14 Vienna

First of all, I have to apologize for the lack of photos.  I discovered last night that I had exceeded the limit of the storage on the iPad for saving pix.  Since this is the first time using the iPad instead of the laptop, I was unprepared for this.  Next time, I will take something to dump the pix on so as not to take up so much room on the tablet.  I also will try to add pix when we get home.

Last night was different in the dining room.  We had a tour of the kitchen and in several places on the ship, stations were set up for serving yourself.  There were all kinds of breads, vegetables, meats, cheeses, desserts and local beers and wine for those who wanted it.  It was really quite nice and fun.  I will certainly post some of the pix - hard work on the part of the kitchen crew to put on such a huge spread.

It was a cloudy and bit raw day today.  We went on our city tour - first by bus on the Ringstrasse - the grand boulevard which encircles the medieval center of the city and then by foot into the center.  Vienna is an enormous city.  There are 8.1 million people in the whole of Austria, which is slightly smaller than the state of Maine, and 1.8 people live in Austria - think of it - one in every four people live in this city!  Vienna was the seat of the Habsburgs and the center of the Holy Roman Empire.  We walked past the stables of the famous Lipizzaner horses, but unfortunately they were not out practicing today.  We wandered past many churches, museums, art galleries, and opera houses.  During our free time, John and Lana discovered an international contemporary glass art shop and when I caught up with them, we discovered that they knew Jeff Pan, a former student, friend of our son Doug, and a local glass blower.  What a small world!  They have had a few of his pieces for sale in their store.  We came back to the ship for lunch and were going to join the Farmer's Market visit with the chef, but we didn't realize you had to sign up ahead of time.  Oh well, we had a quiet afternoon on the ship.  I would have gone back into the city, but there really wasn't anything I wanted to shop for and the museums are all closed on Mondays.  Tomorrow morning we will be in Bratislava, Slovakia and then onward to Budapest where we will disembark and spend a couple of days on our own before flying home.