December 18 – Vienna, Austria
We had spent the night docked in Vienna and awoke to a cold & windy day with snow flurries. The Danube doesn’t go through Vienna, just around it and a canal diverts to the city, so we were docked beyond walking distance to city center. We boarded tour busses at 8:30am for a city tour. The ship provides audio devices so we could listen to the guide even if a block or two away. However, our guide was clueless, didn’t use the headset mic and was so inconsistent in where she held her device that her voice was either breaking up or inaudible, so it wasn’t the pleasant informative tour that it should have been. It was bitterly cold but we did see some beautiful sites, but the overcast sky, fog and snow made for poor photo taking. As usual, the tour finished at the Christmas market which was not as good as in previous stops. Unfortunately the weather made the prospect of staying in the city for lunch & trying to find something to do for 4 hours before the next shuttle bus to the ship less than appealing so we went back to the ship for lunch and stayed for the afternoon. If the weather had been decent it would have been a pleasure to explore this exciting city. Since we both had been here in the past we weren’t too upset about it.
Before dinner we sailed towards Budapest and joined the Captain’s farewell cocktail party in the lounge, where we each had a glass of complimentary champagne. The 6 of us were sitting in a corner of the lounge and the bar waiter who takes care of us at dinner kept our glasses filled. His name is un pronounceable for us so we called him by his initials, JB. The wines served at the dinners were always local, in other words, Rieslings and other sweet wines so JB always had a good chardonnay and merlot or cabernet for the table. What a guy!! The Captain’s dinner featured, naturally, wienerschnitzel and it was tasty. After dinner the crew sang Christmas carols in the lounge – we passed and went to our rooms.