Vienna - Home of Mozart

Vienna was another beautiful place! We got in just in time for dinner and the optional tonight.

Our tour manager, Amanda gave us a bit of a pre-tour before tea and we had a type of buffet for dinner. You grab a plate of food, as much as you want on the plate and go to the register to pay for what's on your plate. Sometimes it;s by weight other times just by the particular food you have on it.

After dinner, we headed off for our culture night. This was a Mozart concert and as you can imagine not many people did this. Not that I minded! :) It was a great night! We were in a quite decorative hall with crystal hangings from the roof. There was about six people playing and also some soprano singers...it was definitely one of the better optionals.

5th July ->
Today I had planned to go see some work by Gustav Klimt by myself. It was a trip out of town, but I wasn't too worried. It didn't go as planned, as we happened to be in Vienna on the day it was closed. So, disheartened I stopped by the Tourist office and found another museum (Leopold) that held some of Klimt's work and also another of my favourite artists, Egon Schiele. Knowing this was near the pick up point, I left this for later in the day and headed off to do some more shopping and touristy things.

First stop was trying out the famous Sache Torte at the Sache hotel. It was scrumptious and fairly cheap! I also got a great coffee here. What it Sache Torte? It's a chocolate cake with a type of apricot/marmalade jam in the middle and chocolate icing on top. Very rich and very fattening, but worth having some!

Feeling sick from having too much cake, I went to the famous church here, when my battery went flat. However it got stuck in the camera and I ended up having to go to a camera specialist to get it out. That will teach me for buying a cheap second battery...

Next stop, the Leopold Museum, where as a bonus they also had Goya's "Disasters of War" etchings on display....I had a look here and noticed the lack of time. So I rushed upstairs, to check out Klimt's amazing piece "Life and Death" and sat in awe for a life time.

Next on the menu was Egon Schiele's work and they have quite a collection. Again, sat in awe at all the work and got told off for being to close to a self-portrait of his! I wasn't touching it, but I happened to noticed that he'd used his thumbs to paint the picture..nothing you know by looking or reading a book.

I had one more glance at Klimt's piece before heading outside to the Photography Exhibition by Air that was on outside. It was a bit like photos from National Geographic and was quite amazing. (Cheryl and Wendy, you would have loved it!)

Running back to the bus, we then headed to the Schnapps Museum. This place had been bombed in the war and only just survived to continue on the family business. We were given the opportunity to try three shots here. Now there was a schnapp made out of chilli, so of course I tried it and it happened to be the strongest one of the lot. It reminded me of Jagermeister...I'm not sure why. I then had Butterscotch and Chocolate Schnapps. They were both nice. After the chilli, I felt quite sick and needless to say, I ended up in the toilets throwing up, not once, but twice. To make things worse, I had to rush to the mens, as the womens was queued up and everyone thought it was funny, that I would have to resort to being sick in the garden or the men's room. Not funny at all!! Neither was the smell from the mens....

We soon headed on to the bus, where we headed for tea in the woods. The food wasn't spectacular, however the entertainment was. A man came out playing the accordian - he was a really funny guy! Everyone had a great time.

That night, there was a bit of a racket from the other Contiki tour and it resorted in me confronting them. We had an early start (4 in the morning) and it was about 12 at night. Apparently some guys had locked themselves in some mates room and they were screaming trying to get help. I ended up getting them out but not without being threatened at the same time.

In the morning, I made a complaint though to my Tour Manager and they got in strife, when I had to identify who they were, with the help from some of the girls.