Arriving late Friday in Vienna at a hotel on the Danube we had some apfelstrudel to celebrate and it was truly delicious.
We had a view across the famous Danube, now dark and black, to the high rises of the Financial District.
In the morning we awoke to bright sunshine and the Danube, sehr shon was very BLAU!
The beautiful blue Danube, very fast flowing actually and busy with shipping traffic too.
Much bigger than imagined also.
First up we needed to get to the HOFREITSCHULE in the centre of the City for Miss Y and I were highly privileged to go see the Lippizaners perform their ballet!
A few photos before the performance was all that was allowed. It's an amazing manege, very Royal.
We came out again about 90 minutes later allowing for some shopping by Miss Y in the Hofreitschule shop for memorabilia and a white horse as tree decoration!
JJ and Miss E were waiting outside tired and a bit fed up with the two Christmas markets they'd seen, one of which was proclaimed a tad smelly....
Lots of horse drawn carriages of course, so suited to this setting?
And having passed the Radhaus and browsed round it's Christmas market we went to have lunch in the Landmann Cafe: glad to sit down out of the icy blasting wind we ordered.
JJ is pointing at the ''vegetarian option'' which has just arrived for Miss E...
An egg floating on a sea of spinach puree with a dome of mashed potato with fried onions.
And our pancakes came thick and chunky with delicious apple puree and even better: a plum compote.
JJ went traditional with the Austrian sausage ( bratwurst), gravy and sauerkraut option.
Afterwards Miss Y chose to visit the Stadtpark to which we took the Metro: choosing to ride both U2 and U3 in turn and exiting at Stubentof...
There was lots and lots of mistletoe growing in these trees but very little snogging alas.
Various sculptures including Mozart of course.
And Mozart Kugeln in the shops: famous Salzburg chocolates!
And many composers honoured in the Hollywood way with stars on the pavements.....
It was getting late and we were tired of all the wandering and walking , so on the way home we spotted this candle decoration...
Back at the Hilton on the Danube the waterfront was dark and the Danube black after we'd had a nap.
Too tired to move and travel back yet again, we stayed for cocktails by the open fires and had a meal in the hotel restaurant.
Goodnight Vienna, that was a lovely first day.
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