Vienna Day 8

---

After an early breakfast we boarded our bus for a tour around Ringstrasse in Vienna by bus before meeting our local guide, Gerhard. As is our usual custom, the local guide takes us on a highlight tour of the city which lasts for about an hour. Gerhard proved to be a wonderful guide who impressed us with his sense of humor as well as his wealth of knowledge. He pointed out the Hofburg Palace, the Vienna Opera House and St. Stephen's Cathedral and Parliament building. Vienna is also home to the Lipizzaner Stallions. We went by the stables and were lucky to see one of the horses poking his head out of his stall. Once the tour was over we had some free time and visited St. Stephen's Cathedral, stopped in some shops, walked the cobblestone streets before meeting Soma at our meeting place for the 1/2 hour drive back to the ship for lunch. We had signed up for an optional tour of the Imperial Schonbrunn Palace in the afternoon. We signed up for this at the last minute even though we had been here before. I couldn't remember a lot about the palace but I remembered the gardens and thought it was worth another look. The palace was once a summer residence of the Habsburg's. We have learned a lot about the Habsburg Dynasty in the last week. Mostly we heard about Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia. She began her rule in 1740 and was the only woman ruler in the 650 year history of the Habsburg dynasty. One tour guide told us that the answer to almost any question was Maria Theresa. After the tour of the palace, with again another excellent tour guide, we walked to the back of the palace to view the gardens which were beautiful. There is also a zoo on the property which we did not have time to see.

We met our bus at the scheduled time and place for the short drive back to the ship. We spent time relaxing until dinner. The dinners have been excellent and the crew very accommodating as well as fun. Each night after dinner there is entertainment or a game, followed by music and dancing. Tonight there was a game called Liars Club which is a dictionary game from the Oxford dictionary. A word is presented and then each of 3 cruise director gets up and gives a very colorful story of what the meaning is. It is our job to find out who is telling the truth. It was really fun and John and I tied for first place. The tie breaker was to guess the combined ages of the cruise directors. We undershot it significantly and came in 2nd. It was fun and worth a laugh.

We sail tonight for another capital city, Bratislava, Slovakia.

---