Vienna Friday 12 September

Cloudy morning as we cruise into Vienna. After breakfast we get into a coach for a sight seeing tour around the Ring Route (Ringstrasse). Lots of glare through the windows so not the best for photos but it certainly is a pretty place with loads of historic buildings and landmarks.

We then have a walking tour that starts with the gardens the Volksgarten.

Next we head to the Hofberg Imperial Palace area. Beautiful buildings everywhere.

Once we leave thae plazaswe are well and truly heading into the centre of the city, but first we pass a small area of Roman ruins that seem very much out of place with their surroundings.

We head to the cathedral, passing all the big name stores. It really is a wealthy city.

The cathedral is both gothic and baroque and very hard to take a photo of the outside that captures all of it. We now have free time before we head to the coaches so I'm on the lookout for a lovely Cafe that I went to last time. I knew it was near the Swarovski shop and the Gustav Klimt store. Like a homing pigeon I found it. We sat out in the plaza area and had our choices and shared piece of cake. Got a shock when we got the bill, but had to remind ourselves that we are in holiday and after all, it is only money!

We looked in a few shops but prices are outrageous so it really was window shopping. Time to head back to the chocked to take us back to the boat. I was totally written out, mainly from having little sleep last night (for no reason at all) so had a lie down and then had a cuppa with Julie in the lounge, read and then our was time for dinner. Saw some swans passing by while we were in the lounge.

A lot of passengers have gone off for a classical music event but having done that previously we weren't interested in a repeat. Dinner was creamy pumpkin soup (mine is better), then schnitzel and strudel. Why do they insist on putting currants in the apple mixture?

Time to head back to thr cabin. Catch up the blog and an early night for me!