Day 5 - Melk/Krems, Austria to Vienna, Austria - Adventures by Disney Danube River Cruise 2016

It was a little tough getting out of bed this morning when the alarm went off.  The past few days' early hours were catching up to us.  We went to breakfast at around 7 am for an 8 am departure.  Breakfast has been pretty close to the same every morning which was just fine.

Today's Daily Adventurer:

We had asked for the blue bus last night after dinner so we picked up both our safety cards as well as our blue group cards this morning.  Our guides were Stephanie and Jennae.  We also welcomed a local guide onto the bus and she did a really good job pointing out sights as we wound our way through Vienna's city center on the bus.  Schonbrunn Palace was only about 8 miles away but we did take some time to pass by and gawk at the gorgeous architecture in Vienna from the opera house to the museum of fine arts to the government buildings.

We got to the Schonbrunn Palace but were running a little late so we "walked with purpose", as Stephanie put it, to get to the marionette show post haste.  We were introduced to the marionettes which each have a certain number of strings and wires as well as joints in all the right places.  The craft of manipulation (not puppetry) is learned over the course of years - the lady introducing us to the marionettes said it took a year for a manipulator to learn how to just "walk" the marionettes on the ground.

The show was Mozart's Magic Flute and was quite good.  It was an abbreviated show hitting most of the highlights from the opera including the overture, the Queen of the Night's arias, and the duet between Papageno and Papagena all squashed into about 30 minutes.  I really enjoyed this production - the pre-recorded music and singers were excellent and the marionettes were really cool.

We had the opportunity to peek backstage after the show and take some pictures.  The marionettes are all handmade and painted with their costumes made by hand as well.  There were 4 manipulators and it was amazing that none of the marionettes got their strings or wires crossed.

We met up with our tour guide again and she led us through the Schonbrunn Palace on a very detailed tour.  How anyone can keep track of all the Austrian monarchs and their relatives is really beyond me.  It reminds me of trying to remember the monarchs in England.

We looked through the gift shop but it was pretty crowded and after a bathroom stop downstairs, we met up again with the blue group to walk over to the gardens.  The "backyard" of the palace was just beautiful - looking at it from the palace side almost seemed like it was a painted backdrop - it was so perfect.  We walked across the entire courtyard to the fountain.

We walked back towards the palace to make our 11:30 am meeting time for the Strudel making demonstration.  We were taken to a restaurant and downstairs to a demonstration kitchen where strudel and coffee was already laid out for us.  It smelled great.

We started drinking coffee and working on eating our strudel when a young man came out to demonstrate how to make a strudel.  The ingredients weren't terribly tough - they even had pre-made filling available in their store available in a can.  At first I thought this might be something to try making at home until the demonstration got started.

As we were shown how to "stretch" the dough and as we watched how he made a ball of dough into a huge thin sheet of dough, I changed my mind about trying to make this at home.

Showing the ingredients to make strudel

Rolling the dough on the special cloth

Stretching the dough

Still stretching the dough

The dough is about the size of a pizza

The dough is bigger around than a pizza

The dough is so thin you can read through it

Applying the filling

Wrapping the strudel

After the strudel show, we headed back to our bus for the short ride back to the Viola.  We stopped by the Schwedenplatz to drop off some Adventurers - this would be where the shuttle would go every half hour to and from the Viola.  We had decided to go back to the Viola for lunch and then head out again in the afternoon to explore Vienna.  We had originally signed up for the Spanish Riding School tour but decided that we wanted to spend the time exploring Vienna city center instead.

Lunch was a buffet along with an entree selection - today, I tried the fish filet which was pretty good.

The first shuttle out in the afternoon was at 2 pm but we hung out just a bit after lunch and decided to take the 2:30 shuttle to the city center.  We accidentally got on the wrong bus - getting on the one for the Spanish riding school excursion but, as it turned out, it was actually closer to where we wanted to go anyways so we played tag along.  After getting off the bus, we walked by the Mozart monument and stopped for a photo.

We made a left after passing the Vienna Opera House which was closed for the months of July and August onto a street that would take us back to our meeting place at Schwedenplatz.  We did a little shopping along the way - magnets and t-shirts.  We stopped in at the Hard Rock Cafe as well and then made our way back to Schwedenplatz where we eventually found the 4:30 pm shuttle to the Viola.

Dinner was early this evening at 5:30 instead of 7:30 since we had more excursions after dinner.  We had a delicious beef cappaccio, creamy pumpkin soup, traditional pork schnitzel, and apple strudel for dessert.

We (Seth, Tim, and I - Lisa decided to stay back on the Viola for this one) got on the red bus for the Viennese Wine House excursion and for just a bit we thought we might be going on a private tour but then a few more people joined us - I think there were about 18 people on this excursion out of the 50 that originally signed up.  They had told us beforehand that the Mozart/Strauss concert would be in a greenhouse back at the Schonbrunn Palace which can get heated up during the day and quite warm at night but it had been cool all day so it wasn't likely to be as warm.  Maybe that's why so many people didn't show up for the wine house excursion - maybe they decided to do the concert instead.  Even though the Guides assured everyone to dress comfortably, I still saw an awful lot of people getting pretty dressed up for the concert.

Our Guides were Stephanie and Veronika.  The bus ride was about 30 minutes long and it was fun to hear Stephanie and Veronika take turns telling us stories about themselves and their experiences with ABD.  We pulled up to our destination and walked down the street to the wine house.  At first, they took us to an outdoor patio covered by grape vines but just after we sat down, we were taken to a different outdoor patio up the stairs.  The restaurant was really big.

When we got to where we were supposed to be, the wine, glasses, bread, and spreads were already laid out on the tables.  We were offered a white and a red wine and we had joked along the way that 18 people had to consume enough wine and food for 50 people tonight.  We took up the challenge willingly.  :-)

There was a cream cheese spread, a paprika cream cheese spread, and a last spread that the Guides had described as "lard".  All 3 or them were really yummy with the lard spread having a smoky flavor and bits of meat in it.  We drank, ate, and got to know our fellow ABDers while a violinist and accordion player serenaded us.

After a few announcements from the owner of the restaurant and a gal who read us a description of the restaurant/winery in broken English - Stephanie could tell that we were losing interest in the narrative and very politely and deftly, got us off the hook from having to listen to the it.  Bless her heart for trying, though, but it looked like this poor gal had another 5 or so pages to go.

We then took a little tour of the grounds to see a few turtles, the buffet downstairs, and then the impressive vineyard (given that we were still in the city limits of Vienna!).

 

Our ABD Guides Stephanie and Veronika

We returned back to our patio and enjoyed wine, good conversation, and a serenade by the violinist.  We got to hear not only Strauss waltzes and Mozart but also the Chicken Dance.  We simply had a ball.  Too soon, it was time to return to the Viola.  We got our briefing for Bratislava in the morning and after dropping our safety cards for the 4th time wondering why the little wooden safety card box didn't show up until tonight, we returned to our stateroom for a good night's sleep after a really fun-filled night.

Next post:

Day 6 - Vienna, Austria to Bratislava, Slovakia