This morning out ship sailed through Vienna and docked in Nussdorf. It is a little distance from the city.
After breakfast we left the ship at 08:30 for our tour of the city. The bus drove us around to see some of the beautiful buildings and then dropped us off at Hofburg Palace. We walked through the exterior of part of the Hofburg Palace, then through part of Vienna. The church was having a blessing of the palms ceremony in one of the squares (they were using pussy willows because there are no palm trees there).
We were given free time and told the bus would take us to lunch on the ship at 11:15 and there would be a bus at 13:30 to take people back to town and 15:00 and 16:30 to return to the ship. We decided to stay in town for the day rather than lose a lot of time from going back and forth to the ship.
First we walked over to the Opera House, but they had no tours today because of Palm Sunday. Outside of the Opera House was some people selling tickets for a concert in a palace. We managed to get a buy one, get one free deal on the ticket.
We walked across the street to Karlskirche and went inside. There was a mass going on, so I couldn’t see much, but what I did see was beautiful.
While I was wondering about I also saw these interesting things…
The information center seemed to think that it wouldn’t be possible to get a ticket for Schonbrunn Palace, so I decided to see the state apartments at the Sisi museum in Hofburg Palace. While waiting in the queue to purchase tickets I noticed an advertisement for a combination ticket for Sisi and Schonbrunn Palace. I asked if it was possible to visit Schonbrunn today and they told me with the Sisi ticket you don’t need a timed entry. We bought the combination ticket for 34 Euro (Ship’s tour of Schonbrunn by itself was $50 and I am not sure if it was the longer 20 Euro tour that we had with the Sisi ticket). They didn’t allow photos inside the palace…. so nothing to show, but it was a good museum.
After visiting the Sisi museum we took the U-bahn (subway) to Schonbrunn Palace. We were able to walk in with our ticket without waiting. They obviously have the place designed for hundreds of people waiting for hours because there were many food and souvenir stands in the courtyard. Again, no pictures allowed inside, but we took the grand tour with allows for viewing all 40 rooms in the palace.
After visiting the Schonbrunn we took the U-bahn to the location of the concert. I snagged a couple of photos before they started playing because photos and videos were not allowed. At the end of the show multiple Viking ships arrived for the later show.
On the way back to the ship we found this Viennese restaurant. I chose the veal escalope sauteed in butter with rice. The rice was a bit hard, but the veal was good.
We took the D tram to Nussdorf then walked 1 km back to the ship. I may not have seen all of Vienna, but I did get to see a lot.
