The Elephant in the Room

Day 18 - 2 June
Vienna (or 'Viena', as my trusty translator app tells me the city is called in Yucatec Maya) (it's called 'vienna' in Klingon, for all you Star Trek fans) was our port of call for the day. After another obesity-inducing 'Clothing Retailers Breakfast' (so called because they must be partly sponsored by the International Association of Holiday-Clothing Manufacturers - none of our waistlines can take much more of this) we were transported into the city to take a walking sightseeing tour. Vienna is very impressive, with lots of beautiful buildings.

A beautiful building

Not a typical building - although it had been built - was this floating swimming pool in the Danube

Lovely fountain

Yes - we went to Vienna to soak up the local culture and discovered an exhibition of Aboriginal Art

More beautiful buildings - note the large grey doors in the building to the left and right of the statue

One of the rather bland grey doors stripped back to reveal the remnants of the original colours - so much prettier than grey

Another beautiful building - yawn

I have to say that most of us were over the experience of seeing beautiful buildings. What we would have given for a glimpse of a stylishly-simple concrete Australian Government office block, or a sophisticated single-story brick-veneer domestic dwelling with inadequate insulation and rattling, poorly-sealed single-glazed windows. The good old days. But I digress.
Soon we entered the main pedestrian mall in Vienna - created to provide a haven of tranquillity and to save shoppers from being run over by the cars and delivery vehicles so prevalent in most cities.

Clearly the delivery trucks had not been told that this was a pedestrian mall - and it was only 10 am

Gratuitous Cathedral glimpse

The walking tour finished and John, Lea, Rhonda and I decided to strike out on our own and see if it was possible to survive in a large cosmopolitan city for a few hours without the support of the ship's crew. Our short-term memories relatively intact we returned to a cafe recommended by our guide, and ordered morning tea. The cafe was very pretty, with impressive chandeliers.

You can just glimpse a chandelier in the upper-middle window

The chandeliers looked much more impressive from inside.

John and Rhonda communicating with each other by text, while waiting for morning tea to arrive 

My rhubarb strudel was well worth the wait - good job I'd fully recovered from breakfast

Shortly after this, John and Lea abandoned Rhonda and me, leaving us to fend for ourselves. We ventured forth to take in the sights.

A scarily-large green rabbit on the roof of a kiosk - hope we don't see any more of these (rabbits)

The horror, the horror - apologies to anyone suffering from leporiphobia (fear of rabbits for those of you without access to a dictionary)

Somehow an Australian Pub in Vienna doesn't add quite the same class as a Viennese Pub would in Australia

One of the famous dancing horses - not dancing, but going out to practise

A huge glass building by a park

After so much walking it was time to experience another tradition in Vienna - a schnitzel for lunch. But first we warmed up with some homeopathic soup, with egg noodles.

It was all part of the deal

Then came the main event.

Vienna schnitzel with warm potato salad and salad - sort of a culinary tautology

After our light lunch we strolled around again and Rhonda discovered a Nespresso shop - she wants to visit as many Nespresso shops around the world as she can.

Cross another one off the list

After this we returned to the ship, to rest up and prepare for the evening concert - light-classical music, operetta and ballet in the famous Arsenal in Vienna. Imagine our surprise, however, when we discovered an elephant in our room. We couldn't believe our eyes - the cabin crew took such great care of us - this was delightful and whimsical.

Towels folded to look like an elephant - in some crazy parallel universe people are laughing at an elephant folded to look like a towel

Couldn't resist another look

After dinner we set off to the concert, eventually arriving at the Arsenal.  The entrance hall was rather impressive.

Entrance hall to the Arsenal

Just in case some of you are a bit confused, we're talking about a complex of buildings in Vienna called the Arsenal. Not to be confused with the famous football club.

The home of the famous Arsenal Football Club

Back to the concert. We were entertained by a small orchestra consisting of a pianist, a flautist, three violinists, a cellist, a double bassist, and a percussionist. They were joined on stage at various times by a pair of opera singers and a pair of ballet dancers. Very cultured.

Great venue

The performers accepting the applause of the audience

After a fabulous evening it was back to the ship for a quick nap before breakfast in Bratislava.