What a change from the quaint small towns we've been visiting - Viena is a bustling, crowded, loud city with music & noise everywhere. We managed q quick tour around the Holfburg Palace and nearly get locked within the gates at dusk - but that's another story. We finished the evening in the ship's bar watching track & field in the Olympics with the bartenders. And yes, Jane & I we're forced to drink another beer from our stash purchased at the Weltenburg Abbey. Yum, very good.
Today we left our guided tour after a short time (she was boring!) and headed off on our own. The palace museums are spectacular, I've never seen so many Ruebens and Bruegalsin one place at the Kunsthistoriches Museum. The interior of the building is just as spectacular as the art.
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| Outside of Opera House |
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| The lobby! |
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| Interior of theater |
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| Second floor lobby! The reliefs on the wall are of the different composers. |
Off next to the Vienna Opera House, where they give tours in English, Spanish, French, and of course German.
What a lovely tour - the company is on hiatus right now, but that meant we could tour backstage. The fire curtain weighs 5 tons. Once your theater has burned down, you just don't take any chances! Loved the box seats, esp the two for the Emporer. One is center first balcony, now the primo seats, the other is the box extreme stage right. Apparently, the Emporer didn't really like opera, so he would pull the curtain closed during the action, and pull them open again with the applause. The repertoire is all classical, and they are in rep most of the time. That means a semi trailer comes every night after a show, the guys load it up, and the new trailer with the next show pulls in. Long days are a matinee with the opera, followed by a balet performance that evening. As many as 250 guys could be on the call on a busy night. Loved it!
Next was a quick visit to the Neue Burg, another museum part of the Palace grounds. This is the most
amazing collection of arms and armour I've ever seen. Rooms of shiny suits of armour both for
people and horses, swords, guns, and halberds. Lifesize horses & riders in the midst of a joust pretty
cool. Ran out of time for the other museums - somewhere there was a Klimpt exhibit and the Sisi exhibit, but just not enough hours in the day to see everything.
Incredible display of armour, for people and horses. There were maybe 6 or 7 rooms full of body armour and weapons.
Don't you love the face mask??
Frank is convinced if you had a pee problem, you had to wear a skirt of armour.
Next was a quick visit to the Neue Burg, another museum part of the Palace grounds. This is the most
amazing collection of arms and armour I've ever seen. Rooms of shiny suits of armour both for
people and horses, swords, guns, and halberds. Lifesize horses & riders in the midst of a joust pretty
cool. Ran out of time for the other museums - somewhere there was a Klimpt exhibit and the Sisi exhibit, but just not enough hours in the day to see everything.
Frank is convinced if you had a pee problem, you had to wear a skirt of armour.
Back on board in time to sit on the sun deck and take some fun photos of us on deck going under low bridges. I love to watch the captains wheelhouse lower into the deck for low bridges! Dinner included a champagne toast to the captain & crew then oh know, it's time to eat again! Love the views outside any given window - even at dinner!
We also enjoyed a bit of putt-putt, Pam shows us how.
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