In all our travels over the years we have never had to make a major alteration to the trip because of equipment failure. This is a first for us. The ship “limped” overnight  to Linz from Passau where we left the ship. The ship will be going into dry dock for repairs to its blown engine. The remainder of our three night “cruise” will be spent in hotels. I am impressed with the ability of Vantage to quickly and efficiently pull together a contingency plan of this magnitude. They had to find buses and hotels in both Vienna and Budapest to accommodate the 140 plus passengers on a last minute basis. Some customers are grousing about the loss of three nights on the ship, but these things sometimes happen. We are lucky it happened at the end of the trip, not the beginning. In fact I wonder if they will be able to fix the problem before the next leg of the cruise (Budapest to the Black Sea) which is scheduled to leave in 3 days. 

Our luggage needed to be out of our rooms by 7:30 this morning and we were on buses by 8:30 for our approximate three hour ride to Vienna. The buses are brand new  “cruisers”, with lots of leg room and a bathroom;  no complaints from me. We will be stopping about half way for an extended comfort stop. Other good news is that we are staying at the 5 star Kempinski hotel in Vienna!  Because of availability some of the group will be staying at the LeMeridien, also a nice hotel. I am pleasantly surprised Vantage is putting us up in such nice hotels. Too bad it is only for one night, as we will be going to Budapest tomorrow. There will be a walking tour of the city this afternoon after lunch.

It is a cloudy morning with some light rain as we head to Vienna, the capitol of Austria. Vienna is the largest city with a population of 1.9 million people. Surprisingly the number two city is Graz with only 220,000 people. Linz is number three with 200,000.

The glory days for Austria was before WWI when the Hapsburgs oversaw the huge Austrian-Hungarian Empire for 600 years. The empire included much of Europe, with a population of some 44 million people. The empire was dissolved after WWI.

A much reduced-in-size Austria became part of the Nazi Germany before WWII. After WWII it was overseen by 4 countries until 1955 when it received its independence on the condition that it remain a neutral country. Their constitution requires the neutrality and they have been quite happy to do so. They are not a member of any alliance, e.g.  NATO.

Fun facts:  Vienna is noted for their coffee houses, but the credit for coffee is due to the Ottoman Turks who invaded (unsuccessfully) the region in the 16th and 17th century. They left behind coffee beans and the Austrians took over the coffee business.

More fun facts: Vienna also has been voted the best capital city in the world in which to live and work. By the way do you have trouble knowing when to use capital versus capitol? Capital is a city. Capitol is a building. Visualize the “o” as the dome on the top of a building. You are welcome!

The rain was not have supposed to start until 5 PM but obviously it did not read the forecast as by the  time we got to Vienna it was raining pretty steadily and I could not even take any pictures from our coach of this beautiful city. We arrived at our hotel, the Kempinski, for lunch which was superb, as expected.

Rooms were not all available before we went on a city tour that included a drive around the area followed by a walking tour. Because of the rain we were offered an opportunity to return to the hotel if we wished to skip the walking part. Yvonne and I have been to Vienna before and wisely (based on what we heard later ) decided to skip the walking part and return to the luxury of our hotel room. I later learned that our room was really a mini-suite that consisted of a living room and separate bedroom. There were plush oversized towels, heated bathroom floors, a humongous shower, fancy slippers and bathrobes, and high end toiletries. It was lovely!

For the evening we had signed up for an optional dinner at one of the Vienna Austrian wine houses called “heuriger” where you experience young wine, simple food and often music. Vienna is unique in that there are actually vineyards in the city proper and these establishments make and sell their own wine. What started as a wine bar gradually grew into what it is today-a restaurant the sells wine, offers food and many provide entertainment, like the one we attended. About 1/2 of our group opted for this activity while the rest stayed at the hotel for a set plated dinner. Upon arrival at the restaurant we were greeted by the owner who took us through a taste testing of his wines, followed by an accordionist/singer who entertained us with song and music we all recognized. He was darn good, with a great voice. As liters of wine were liberally poured the patrons soon joined in song. Dinner was a buffet of typical Austrian meat, potatoes, salad and vegetable dishes followed by warm apple strudel and ice cream.  Before the dessert was served we were all up on our feet participating in some group dancing.

Two hours later we were taken back to the hotel for a well earned rest.