Vienna Oct 17

We took the bus to downtown Vienna, with a choice of 3 excursions:  Schonbrunn (summer) Palace, Hofburg (winter) palace, and the Lipizzaner Horses. We visited the Schonbrunn palace last time, so Hofburg it was.  The main theme of this palace is "Sissi", or Elizabeth, the wife of Franz-Joseph Hapsburg, the emperor of the Austria-Hungarian empire for over 60 years until 1916. Here is the main entrance to the palace:

Here is the courtyard outside the palace where Hitler announced the annexation of Austria into the Third Reich:

No photography was allowed inside the palace.  We walked by the stables for the Lipizzaner horses, shown here with a forklift bringing them apples:

We walked around the original old town of Vienna, dating back to the Roman, here is an archeological dig in the middle of the city from first century

Everywhere you looked, there was interesting architecture.  Most of the buildings were from the 1800s, then rebuilt after being destroyed during WWII, with lots of statues

Of course we had to visit the local cathedral, St Stephens, very dark and gothic compared to what we saw in the past few days

We then took a tour of the Opera House...there was an opera tonight, but only standing room only tickets were available...wait in line for 5 hours, then the show lasts 4 hours, no thank you!  The price is right at 4 euros.

 getting ready for tonight's opera, it's a different one almost every night.  Only operas and ballets are performed in this auditorium, no concerts because of the acoustics

there are screens on the back of the seats to translate the operas into several languages

 the outside almost looks like a train station

Back on the ship for our final night aboard, tomorrow we bus to visit Bratislava, Slovakia, and afterwards bus to Budapest for 3 nights before returning home Sunday.