We entered several locks on the way from Bratislava to Vienna. It was interesting to see that the ship tied up to bollards that floated up with the water in the lock. The Captain explained that this was to keep the ship from moving around as the lock filled with water.
As the ship rose up in the lock you could see the water differential with the next section of the Danube.
That first night we had a concert prepared for us in the Vienna Military Museum. One thing we have discovered with Uniworld is they really do an excellent job with the musical aspects of the voyage!
The concert was exceptional. Here is the first video, showing a portion of the Blue Danube, one of my favorite classical pieces, ever since my father took me to see 2001: A Space Odyssey when I was just 7 years old (yeah, at 7 I had no idea what was going on in that movie).
They had an excellent Tenor during the concert, and his facial expressions said a thousand words!
My favorite bit of the concert was the give and take from the Tenor and the Soprano! If only I spoke German!
The next morning pretty much the entire ship had the same excursion to the Art Museum, and we had a really excellent art historian as a guide. We were able to get into the museum before the general public, just another Uniworld perk, and trust me, this is a huge perk! The line to get in when we were leaving was outrageous!
The most important painting (for her) was this one depicting Mary and her baby Jesus, with all of the worshipers bowing down to the priest to the left of the painting. Back in that time period, one could only speak to God via the priest, not by simply praying, and this painting was showing that seemingly poor way of viewing religion, with the guy on the right pointing out “Ya know, this is the son of God, not that charlatan on the left”.
We had some free time in the museum, and I have to say we found three pieces we have heard of before, and were surprised to see here. The first is the “Tower of Babel”, painted in 1563 by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. He actually made three versions of this painting, the first painted while he was in Rome, which was lost, while this is the second, referred to as the “Great” Tower of Babel, since it’s his largest version of the painting. The third is in Rotterdam…and while we were in the city, we didn’t have time to visit the museum. I love the detail in this painting!
The second work that we were impressed to see was this one by Johannes Vermeer, called the “Art of Painting”, which he painted from 1666-1668. Vermeer is huge in the Netherlands, and this piece likely should have received more attention from our tour. There are less than 100 pieces painted by Vermeer, and they are all considered masterpieces.
The third was actually recognized by our guide, briefly, as the very first winter scene ever produced in a painting, “Hunters in the Snow”, another painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1565. He was instrumental in painting winter scenes of ordinary people. We even have a puzzle of one of his paintings at home!
While we loved the guide that took us around the museum, I’m a little bit surprised that she didn’t focus on two of these pieces, as they are huge in the art world.
We departed the museum and took a walking tour of Vienna. While some of the spots were things we have seen previously, our guide pointed out some spots that were new to us. I loved this clock tower that was part of the Hofburg palace that has a depiction of the current moon cycle (the full golden orb depicts that tonight was a full moon), as well as a sun dial that dates to the late 1600’s.
In the afternoon we had a culinary tour of Vienna, and while the culinary aspect of it was just so-so, the guide was excellent, and pointed out some interesting things we hadn’t seen previously. First off, below is one of Vienna’s Fire Stations. You could have fooled me! They had to buy special fire trucks that could fit in the narrow doorways of this building.
He then pointed out this Holocaust Memorial, that he mentioned depicts books in a library facing inside out. The books are meant to depict the countless victims of the Holocaust, and a reference to Jews as “People of the Book”.
Around the monument are inscriptions of the various concentration camps where the Jews were murdered.
We were walking fast but our guide pointed out this clock called the Ankeruhr. It’s supposed to have moving figures and to play different composers every hour (maybe Walt Disney saw this way back when), but we were there right at the strike of 4:00 PM, and didn’t see anything. I’ve heard since that the clock is typically 5 minutes slow.
The culinary tour hit the cellar of this wine shop, but we only got to taste one wine. Now is that a wine tasting? No!
I did like this wine quote however.
This is the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, and I don’t care how long the name is, it’s beautiful!
Back on our ship, this is the more modern part of Vienna.
This church was close to our ship, referred to as the Emperor’s Jubilee Church, since it was built in 1898 for the 50 year anniversary of the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.
That night we had an incredible performance by the Pressburger Duo, a musical Abbot and Costello of talent! The songs were long, but here are some snippets. Pressburger was the former name of Bratislava, the Capital of Slovakia.
This one used an instrument right out of Australia, but it’s local to Slovakia.
Next up, we visit Durnstein and Melk, both in Austria, with some wine tasting and an Abbey visit.