Wednesday: October 9
Vienna, Coffee and Concert
Despite an ominous weather start to the day, the weather has turned beautiful. It is just after lunch, and I’m sitting on the sun deck in my tee-shirt writing this up. It is almost too hot in the bright sun under the blue sky, with just enough puffy white clouds to be interesting. It is slightly cool for a tee-shirt in the shade, but rather warm for a tee-shirt in the bright sun.
We did the extended walking tour this morning. I’m already at 10,000 steps and 120% of my daily goal.
On the way out, a person stopped our guide and asked how to get to the Viking ship. “Which one?” he asked. “The Viking one,” she answered. “Which one?” he asked again, “What is the name of your ship?” The issue is that there were at least three Viking ships here, and maybe more. He jokingly told us to make sure we know the name of the ship. Then when we returned, he turned away from our ships towards the other Viking ships (from force of habit), so we had to chide him for not remembering the name of our ship.
On the subway a person had a big white fluffy dog that was remarkably well-behaved given the noise and crowd. He left before our stop, and I saw that it was some sort of service dog.
It started out overcast with a chance of rain. I wore my heavy fleece shirt and my raincoat, with my down vest in my backpack. Amy wore her vest and raincoat First the raincoat came off and she tied it around her waist. Then the vest came off and went into my back pack. I was ok with my fleece shirt unzipped and my raincoat unzipped, until the last stretch from the subway to the boat. I was rather roasting, but I waited until I got to the boat to ditch my clothes.
I definitely liked the walking tour rather than the bus tour, but I have to admit to becoming saturated. Another historic building/fountain/statue. Another beautiful baroque/gothic church.
At the end of the tour, we had 45 minutes of free time. So what did we do? We first checked out the inside of the baroque church, and then checked out the inside of the nearby gothic church. Amy took a lot of pictures. I took some, but I was getting churched-out.
|
|
|
|
|
We had walked from the boat to the subway, taking the subway 5 stations, walked around, and then taken the subway back. We had just enough time to get organized and then head up for lunch. We ate at the Aquavit terrace. Unfortunately, they didn’t open the glass doors, and so it was rather warm there. I think the main dining room might have been better. Amy ordered lasagna, but it didn’t agree with her, so she just got a hotdog (by itself, no bun), and that went down better.
We have a free afternoon. Then there will be an early dinner, and then we’ll go to a concert in the evening. I saw two people sacked out on couches in the sun on the sun deck, sort of like cats on a sunny window sill. That is a tempting thought. Right now, Amy is washing some of her clothes, so that they can dry by tomorrow.
|
|
-
After lunch, Amy wanted to take a nap, so I went back by myself to find a coffee house. I went back to Stephensplatz and just wandered around looking for a good coffee shop. There were some really upscale stores there—the kind with very well-dressed bouncers stationed at the door. My guess is that they are there to make sure people coming in are possible purchasers and not tourists.
|
|
There are also tricycle “cabs”. That would be a lot of weight to drag around, but I decided that these were e-bikes, so the person in front didn’t have to deal with all of the weight by themselves.
|
In general, Vienna seems very bike-friendly, not as much as Amsterdam, but a lot more so than the US. There were copious bikes, e-bikes, and electric scooters.
I wore my orange fleece shirt, which was just about right. I wandered around and eventually picking a shop. In hindsight, I would say that I had a coffee at a coffee shop in Vienna rather than in a Viennese coffee shop. There were people smoking in the outside section, so I opted to eat inside, even though it was slightly warm inside. I got a <something> melange and a sachertort. I wasn’t exactly sure what kind of coffee I was getting, but the menu had little graphics that helped me understand what the myriad of coffee drinks were. As I was leaving, I got a few macarons for Amy as a small gift.
|
I then had to find my way back to St Stephen’s church, which was slightly more challenging than I expected. I found the path we had taken in the morning, and followed that (with a few wrong turns) to the church. I passed one subway station in my wanderings, but I couldn’t find it on my subway map, so I decided that it would be better to just walk to the church and see more of the city.
I eventually found the church and subway station. It was roughly 5:00, and the subway was very crowded. I was the last one to board my car. The door started to close around me to “eat” me, but I squeezed forward and got on the car.
I ended up getting back just in time for the port talk. Amy was still resting in the room, so I had to rouse her and go up to the port talk. It would have been ironic if I had gone straight to the talk, and I had made it from the center of Vienna, and Amy had been on the boat and missed it.
—
At the end of the port talk, there was the captain and the head of the hotel, and they introduced all of the crew. When the chef came up to talk about tonight’s dinner, I saw the captain leaving, so I ran out to catch him. I had some questions that I had been wanting to ask him, but I could never find him. I figured that this was my golden opportunity.
My main question is that on many bridges, at least in this part of the world, there are these poles sticking out by the piers, with radar reflectors on their ends. My question was why stick them out rather than putting the reflectors on the bridge itself, which would be cheaper and easier.
In hindsight, the answer made perfect sense. Without the reflectors, or with the reflectors on the bridge, the bridge would appear on the radar as a straight line across the river, and there would be no indication where the piers or channel was. By having the reflectors sticking out, there are sort of pips or protrusions on the radar image where the piers are, and so you can see where the piers/channel is on the radar image.
I also asked him about one particular mooring. We were about 1 meter away from the shore; i.e. there was about 1 meter of water between the ship and shore. There were ropes tying us to the shore, but I was wondering what kept us 1 meter away. The answer, as I expected, was that in this particular anchorage, there were underwater bumpers that the ship was pulled against. In the other anchorages, the bumpers were at the water level or above the water, so the ship was essentially pulled against the bumpers/shore.
I had been wondering if I would have had to go up to the wheelhouse, knock on the door, and ask him my questions, but it was much more convenient to catch him in the hallway and ask him my questions.
I skipped dessert tonight, as nothing really grabbed me, and I know that my appetite was smaller than usual. The whole table ordered the beef, even Amy. Amazingly, it seemed to agree with her, so she ended up eating half of the beef.
|
Tomorrow is Budapest, and then the next day we head out really early for our flight home. I really hope I can sleep tonight and don’t get a bad cough. I wasn’t sure whether I should have wine with dinner tonight. Sometimes, it makes my nose worse, which would be a pain. OTOH, I’ve had a glass of wine with most dinners, and until last night I’ve been sleeping fine, so I didn’t want to rock the boat. I had a glass of wine, thinking that perhaps it would quiet my throat a bit. I’m going to call it an early night tonight, and see what the night brings.
Saturday, we leave dim and early. I think we’re scheduled to leave the boat at 6:30.
——
I was thinking that we would be going to a normal city concert with a full orchestra. Instead, it was a smaller venue, with a six-piece ensemble: the Vienna Residence Orchestra. The room was probably twice the size of our house, but it was small by symphonic orchestra standards. I think most if not all of the audience came from cruise ships, with a large number of those from Viking ships (I think there are at least three here if not more).
There were two half-hour sets with a break with sparkling wine for an intermission. The first set had more well-known pieces with which I was familiar. The second set, except for “Blue Danube” were pieces that were new to me. It was sort of an “intro to Viennese music” program. There were some normal pieces, some waltzes, some ballet, and some opera.
For one piece, just after the music started, a guy came in carrying a woman manikin. He set her down and started dancing around her. I was trying to figure out whether it was actually a manikin, or a real woman pretending to be one. Then she cracked a smile, and I knew that she was a real person. He turned an imaginary crank on her back, and she transitioned from manikin to robot to person. She did a very good job of being a living, flowing person, a mechanistic robot, or a manikin. I think the ballet numbers were my favorites.
|
|
The male opera singer had a good, expressive voice, although I had not the foggiest idea what he was singing about. The soprano wasn’t as good. A lot of the time, I had difficulty hearing her over the instruments.
When we got back, they were serving goulash soup on the Aquavit terrace. It was very good. Actually, all of their soups have been very good. Amy and I had a little, then I wrote up the evening, and now it is time for bed. It is already 11, and we have a somewhat early morning biking tomorrow.