Day 6 - Friday, May 5, 2017 - In Vienna and Vienna Woods

In the morning, we took a bus to the old inner part of the city for our walking tour. We walked through the Spanish riding school, famous for the white Lipizzan stallions. We weren't able to see them perform, but we were able to walk by the stables where they were being groomed before being taken to the riding ring.

Lipizzan stallion

From there we visited the historic St. Stephen's Cathedral. It is very impressive but unfortunately, so large, that it is difficult to get a good photo and there is a lot of construction going on around the cathedral.

We had cappuccinos in the cathedral square before getting the bus back to the ship and lunch.

After lunch, we took a bus tour to the famed Vienna Woods to the north which look down on the city and numerous vineyards. At the top is a Catholic church dedicated to the Polish troops who helped turn back the Turks in the 1600s.

 View from the mountain top - Vienna Woods

On the way back to Vienna, we stopped at a traditional pub in Grinzing to sample different "new" wines and spreads to put on hearty bread. The wines didn't have a lot of flavor but we were feeling quite relaxed after two 8 ounce (250ml) mugs of wine.
The pub

 Strange poster - couldn't find out the meaning

One of the challenges for the ever increasing number of cruise ships is the limited number of docking sites. This often requires the ships to be lashed together side-by-side and then you have to walk from one ship to the next and onto the dock.

 Our ship on the right.

 After dinner, the ship continued upstream to Durnstein.

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