Sept. 13, Day 10/ Day 4 Bicycling--NOT

Saturday and our last day to ride:  We woke to pouring rain with a 99% chance for its continuation throughout the day, along with very cold temperatures. Hal has a cold and swollen legs, so we decided to stay on board--as did the vast majority of other bike riders. Poor guys on the ship had to reload almost all the bicycles.

It's a shame because, as the cruise director told us, this was the prettiest part of the trip, through the Wachau Valley with options for wine and schnapps tasting and beautiful towns along the way. So our last day will be spent on board reading and resting and trying to get everything repacked in our suitcases as we have an early departure. We leave in half an hour from our present dock in Rossatz

and continue cruising upriver

to Melk

where we will probably brave the rain to walk through town and up the hill to an abbey.

Maybe I will get some pictures there as we can't see much of anything due to the rain right now. Photos above of the view over Meld from the abbey, the local abbey kitty, and the abbey from down in the town.
We have to be out of our cabins by 8:30 am tomorrow --including a picture of our home for the last week here--

and will catch a 2:30 train back to Munich, spend the night at the airport Sheraton and fly to London on Monday morning.

Day 9 - Vienna

We docked outside Vienna about noon and took a tour bus into the city at 1:30. The most unexpected place we saw was a municipal apartment complex designed by an artist who named himself Hundertwasser (hundred waters)  who felt straight lines in housing were designed for the convenience of architects and were not natural. He thought our house was our "third skin" (our physical skin being first,  clothing being the 2nd, society being the 4th) and that we should be comfortable in all our skins. The city of Vienna actually owns a little over 20% of the apartments in Vienna, most dating back to a socialist period of government in the 20's and 30's and very bland gray blocks of buildings. As you will see, Hundertwasser did something totally different with trees growing on the roof, out of balconies, etc. No two windows in the building are alike.

We saw so many beautiful buildings that it was impossible to capture without being overwhelmed, but here are some pictures of the rathaus,

the Hapsburg winter palace which has 2,600 rooms,

and the Lipizaner stalls.

We got off the bus to walk to St. Stephen's cathedral, which started with a Romanesque entrance and evolved to gothic style.

The interior was elaborate as have been all the churches we've seen.

We abandoned the tour and walked to an open air market with lots of small restaurants and amazing displays of meats, fruits/vegetables, cheeses, etc. We had a fairly ordinary meal there and wandered back through town to find a konditorei and share a piece of Sacher torte. Then we watched part of Wagner's "Flying Dutchman" on the big screen outside the Staats Oper house - they do a different opera every night and they actually project the performances on a screen that passers by can stop and watch. They have at least two major symphony orchestras, several theatres of course, innumerable galleries and museums--truly a place of culture that we did not have time to really experience.

In case you are not familiar with Albrecht Durer's work, the pink rabbit is a reference to one of his famouse drawings. Interesting fact: During the "Ball Season" between Dec. 31st and Lent, they hold 300 balls around the city!