We woke up (without the alarm, this was a free morning) to find a new type of view from our balcony.

It seems that Vienna is a major port for Viking (and other cruise lines) so docking space is at a premium.
We were one of 7 Viking ships in port today, using 3 docking locatons.
Thus we spent our time in Vienna tied together with two other ships.
Which means that to get to your ship you may have to pass thru the reception area of one or more other ships. It’s not a real problem, they are well marked and if you happen to scan your card on the wrong ship (that’s how they keep track of who has left and who hasn’t yet returned) the card reader will tell you it doesn’t know who you are.

After breakfast I spent some time on the balcony blogging, and had a nice chat with our next door neighbors from Kansas City.

After a while I got tired of blogging and set out to take advantage of the fact that most other passengers were out on excursions to shoot a video of this level of the ship.

We met Tim and Diane for lunch out on the terrace. The Chef had fired up the industrial size bar-b-que grill and was doing wonderful things with satay.

After lunch we headed out for our visit to the Spanish Riding School (and the Lipizzaner stallions)
Along the way we captured some interesting street scenes.

The Spanish Riding School occupies a corner of the massive Hapsburg palace. It’s roots lie in a Hapsburg prince who grew up in Spain but was called back to Vienna. He brought his favorite Andalusian horses with him, and set up a riding school to keep the riding style that he learned in Spain alive.

We had a gided tour of the facility. We didn’t see a show because they only perform on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Next we crossed the street to the stables to meet several of the horses.

In the tack room we saw that each horse has two saddles, the black one is for training and the white one (covered here with a red cover) is for performance.
The white saddles are custom fit for their horse so they require no blanket.

Following our visit to the Spanish Riding School we had a carriage ride.

After the carriage ride it was back to the ship for libations, port talk, and dinner before heading back to the bus for a concert.

The performers were a standard chamber group with the addition of a flute.
Also participating were a bass/baritone and a soprano as well as a pair of ballet dancers.
The selection was varied (but weighed heavily on Mozart, Strauss, Vivaldi and such).
Overall the performance was excellent but the dancers really stole the show.

All in all it was a great ending to an interesting day.

Tomorrow we are declaring a day of rest.
We might venture into town if the mood strikes but with temperatures hovering in the mid to high 90’s I would guess that we won’t be leaving the comfort of the ship.
I’ll let you know.

Till then…
R