Before breakfast: Sunday was, for me, a vacation from my vacation. Our ship had been chugging upstream all night long, and we were not expected to arrive at Reichsbrücke Dock in Vienna until 7 p.m. I was still quite jet-lagged and very rusty at the traits needed for fruitful traveling. I hoped that a day off would be both relaxing and stimulating, but I would settle for one or the other.

During the night I had been bothered a few times by leg cramps. I have a lot of experience at dealing with them. At home I can ordinarily get right back to sleep as soon as I resolve them, but I had more trouble with these. I slept fitfully.

When I woke up for good I was alarmed to see quite a bit of blood on the sheets. The good news was there was no swelling whatever around the sore on my knee, but a few drops of blood were visible. I cleaned off the surface. Then I applied a layer of bacitracin and a layer of New-Skin.

After filling my saliva sample I checked the knee again. It did not seem to be bleeding, but I decided to use one of my Band-Aids anyway. The gauze portion was just large enough to cover the abrasion, and the adhesive portion was still sticky. I was fairly confident that the bandage would contain any blood. Nevertheless, I decided to wear my bloody jeans for one more day.

The only required activity was the safety drill at 10 a.m., but the ship offered quite a few optional activities that, unless specified, took place in the lounge. These were all described in the Viking Daily.

• At 11 a.m. Gary was scheduled to provide inside information about the optional tours available on the rest of the voyage.

This photo of a Viking wheelhouse was on the Internet.


• From 2 to 3 p.m. Captain Marcell Stephan[1] would allow passengers to visit the wheelhouse, which was on the Sun Deck.
• At 2:30 Gary would talk about Mozart and the elegant coffeehouses in Vienna.
• At 3:30 Executive Chef Adrian was slotted to demonstrate to passengers how to make Apfelstrudel (apple strudel).
• At 5:15 Gary was to give another presentation about the optional tours in Vienna.
• At 10 p.m. Gulaschsuppe would be served on the Aquavit Terrace on Deck #2.

There was also an optional excursion at 7:30 entitled "Mozart & Strauss". Sue had wanted to go to this concert, which cost $109 per person, until I showed her the caveat that the group giving the concert had posted on its website:

Currently the Residence Orchestra performs with seven musicians, and one singer and without dancers a one-hour-long concert program without intermission. The bar is currently closed.

At any rate I expected to satisfy my Mozart jones on Monday evening because I had tickets for Le Nozze di Figaro at the Wiener Staatsoper.

From breakfast through lunch: I sat by myself at breakfast again, but this time I brought the map of Vienna with me. It appeared to me that the Imperial Treasury was within fairly easy walking distance of the Wiener Staatsoper.

I noticed this time where the cereals were dispensed. I didn't take a bowl, but I took note for future occasions. I also discovered the location of the fruit, which included some bananas. I did take a banana.

After breakfast I returned to the cabin and consulted Rick Steves' guidebook for Vienna concerning the Imperial Treasury. Both items that interested me were reportedly exhibited in room #11. The directions for walking from the U-Bahn station to the museum seemed a little sketchy. However, I was not too worried about finding it. After all, it was in the Hofburg Palace. There must be plenty of signage or a place that provided directions for tourists.

While I was involved with this research, Daniel, the cabin steward for the steerage area, knocked on my door. I told him that he could skip making up the cabin on this morning. I planned to spend much of the day in the room, preferably asleep.

At 9:45 Gary, the Program Director broadcast the following announcement:

The second announcement actually came eight minutes later:

I will spare you from listening to the really obnoxious long blast. Here is what the "short blasts" sounded like:

It was a little chilly and breezy that morning. I had the foresight to put on my jacket before climbing up to the Sun Deck. I found the staff member holding the sign marked "1". My recollection is that there were only two other couples in our group. The rest of the passengers were either in group 2 or 3. The passengers in group 3 were provided with caviar and champagne while they waited for this tiresome exercise to end. They were also given the secret password for access to the lifeboats in case of a real emergency, or at least that is what I heard.

Gary terminated the exercise with the following:

At a little after 11 o'clock I arrived in the lounge to listen to Gary's disquisition concerning the excursions available in the ports of call after Vienna. Gary did not seem to use an outline, although he did have a piece of paper on which the times of the tours were listed. He relied on his slideshow to remind him which ones conflicted with the included tours. He made quite a few mistakes, and his pronunciation of German names and words was awful. I recorded most of the presentation.

You can listen to it here:

I was surprised that he said that only the "included" excursion to the abbey at Melk would be available at the only other docking in Austria. I asked him about the excursion to Göttweig Abbey that I had already purchased. He said that it had been canceled, but his explanation of why was not very clear. This was a pretty big disappointment. Jake, the Viking agent who helped me book this tour originally, mentioned it as one of the highlights. I had even watched Viking TV's impressive video about the abbey, which can be found here.

Gary emphasized that he thought that Rothenburg was the best medieval town to visit. Maybe the sales of this event were slow. His efforts were wasted on me. I had already purchased this excursion.

Gary also claimed that the van Lowenstein family owned both of the two castles that were included in the "Modern Aristocracy" excursion. They certainly did not own Schloss Mespelbrunn, and the estate that they did own had mostly been converted into a hotel and conference center. The part that they allowed us to visit was a modern winery.

I did not really learn much new about the other two excursions that I had purchased—Salzburg and "Top of Cologne". I was a little disappointed but not surprised that little free time was allowed in Salzburg. Gary suggested just having a snack for lunch.[2]

At one point during the presentation the ship passed a large city on the right.[3] A few cruise ships were actually docked there. It must have been Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, and home of the wild and crazy Festrunk brothers. A few months back the Grand European Tour stopped in Bratislava. The city was allegedly removed from the itinerary to allow for more time in Vienna.

Sue was hoping to visit a pizzeria in Bratislava that was apparently run by distant relatives or at least people with a very similar name—Slanec as opposed to her family name of Slanetz. I found a menu posted online as of March 16, 2022, but in June Google reported that the restaurant was permanently closed.

Shortly thereafter we passed through our first lock. The scenery disappeared and was replaced by high concrete walls on both sides. Throughout the voyage it was difficult to tell whether the ship was moving or stationary. No one would get seasick on one of these longships.

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Lunch, cruising, and snoozing: Lunch was served at 12:30. I sat by myself again, but it did not bother me. I ordered the cream of broccoli soup with almonds. The temperature was right, and it tasted OK. However, the broccoli was just tiny green specs. I could see the almonds, but I could not taste them. I also had a focaccia sandwich of prosciutto and mozzarella. That and the apricot tart served as dessert were both very tasty.

When I arrived back in my stateroom I used my laptop to purchase one ticket for admission to the Imperial Treasury in the Hofburg Palace. I was able to download it to my phone. My new plan was to take the U-Bahn from the Vorgartenstraße Station, which was a short distance from where the ship was docked, to the Stephansplatz Station, which was a little over half a mile from the Hofburg Palace.

Google Maps predicted that I could make the journey in twenty-three minutes, but that assumed that a train would be waiting for me in Vorgartenstraße Station and that I would be able to make my way without errors or delays from Stephansplatz to the museum. Neither of those assumptions were reasonable. Nevertheless, I figured that I could probably make it in forty-five minutes or less.

After visiting the museum I planned to walk toward the Wiener Staatsoper. If I had time and if I was hungry, I would try to find a place to eat supper or at least a snack. I expected to have plenty of time. After the opera I would walk the short distance to the Karlsplatz Station and take the U-Bahn back to Vorgartenstraße Station.

Google's estimate of seventeen minutes was subject to the same caveats as above. However, I would presumably have already located the Karlsplatz Station before the opera, and I should have little difficulty finding the ship at the other end. Thirty minutes seemed a reasonable top-end estimate. My biggest worry that the 10:30 p.m. ending time on my opera ticket might not be accurate. If the production included the arias by Marcellina and Don Bassilio, I doubted that the estimated 3½ hours would be sufficient for the performance. In any case, I would be wearing my watch and could duck out early if necessary.

I was satisfied with this plan—so much so that I fell asleep and did not awaken for two and a half hours.

When I woke up I took a quick tour of the ship for the first time. The library/game room was much smaller than I remembered from the one on the Russian trip. I did not notice any books in which I might be interested on the shelves. I still had more than a hundred pages left on the book that I brought from the Enfield Public Library.

The "shop" was just a showcase. There did not appear to be anywhere one might buy something practical. On the Sun Deck some people were playing shuffleboard. There was also a putting course of some kind and a walking track that seemed very short to me. The Austrian scenery did not impress me. I returned to my cabin.

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon working on my laptop. I set up word processing documents for each day of the tour, and I wrote down everything that I could remember that had happened thus far. It was not an enjoyable task. The only pleasant moments had come during supper on Saturday.

I took a few uninspiring water-level photos from the window of my cabin.

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Supper and the evening: I discovered Mike and Vivienne dining with another couple. Since there were two empty chairs, I asked if I could join them. Of course, they agreed. The other couple were named Glenn and Pat. They said that they were from the Sacramento area. Later I saw Glenn wearing a UC Davis sweatshirt.

I ordered a salad that contained quite a bit of unadvertised arugula. I mentioned my dislike of it. Evidently the English call it rocket or maybe roquette. I would just as soon eat dandelions. The main course, wiener schnitzel and potatoes—with no gravy!—was excellent, and my portion was huge. The dessert was a puff pastry with apricot stuffing.

Glenn asked me a lot of questions, mostly about my business. I don't remember Pat saying anything. The conversation was pleasant enough, but not nearly as vibrant as that of the previous evening.

I asked each couple what their plans for Vienna were. Mike and Vivienne planned to go to the concert after supper. Glenn and Pat planned to "play Vienna by ear". When Mike heard about my plans for the opera, he asked me if I liked Wagner. I told him that I had tried.

Mike disclosed that he, like Inspector Morse, had a large collection of tapes, records, and a few CD's of classical music. I think that he thought that it was a little peculiar that I suggested that they could all probably fit on a flash drive to which he could listen almost anywhere.

I received six emails from Sue. She had worked with someone at Viking to change my return booking from a one-stop journey via British Airways through London to a direct flight via KLM. This would allow her to play in the bridge tournament in Marlborough on that day and still meet me at the airport in Boston. My new arrival time was 6:30 p.m. Unfortunately, there was no way for me to print my new itinerary. She told me that the new flight cost the same as the previous one.

I must have done something after supper besides checking my emails, but I could not tell you what it was. I was surely asleep by 9:00.

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