After 5 days in Italy it was time to give the boot the boot and head into Austria. As I snoozed on the bus I suddenly felt the side of my face warm up. And as I opened my eyes I saw us weaving our way past the Dolomite Mountains, sun shining, rivers flowing and white capped mountains rising on every side around us. It was a beautiful sight until we drove into a tunnel and emerged in fog. This pretty much happened the whole day. Fog, tunnel, sunshine. Sunshine, tunnel, fog.
Our first service was a few minutes into Austria, at a beautiful Austrian styled rest stop where I had schnitzel. There we found a plastic horse named Dolly, which Justine insisted that I sat on. I got her back at the next rest stop where we both stood in a blue "Black Car" and then Justine, to our disbelief, managed to fit inside a helicopter. I'm surprised her arms and legs didn't stick out the sides!
We cruised our way into our Vienna hotel, which happens to be a used for a lot of business meetings. But while the pool is empty, there is free wi-fi! We settled in our rooms before getting ready for tonight’s evening entertainment. Off we wandered to our optional activity, beginning with dinner at the Vienna Rathaus, or town hall and home to the mayor. The decor was stunning, and we were treated to three courses; vegetable soup with strips of pancake on top, turkey schnitzel and vanilla strudel. Everything was delicious. I love Austrian food.
Then it was off to see the Vienna Resident Orchestra in concert as they played Wolfgang Mozart and Johann Strauss. I was surprised at how many of the compositions I recognised. The arias were performed by Eva Kumpfmüller and I had shivers down my spine when she was singing, it was simply brilliant. There were also two ballet dancers who performed for some of the waltz numbers. It was astounding. If this is what we got treated to tonight, I can't imagine how wonderful tomorrow is going to be. Let's just hope this rain eases up; we don't want another Nice.
No comments:
Post a Comment