Vienna Day 3 ~ 11/27/18

Good afternoon from Vienna, Austria although I believe it is afternoon for most of you all now.

We got a bit more rested last night and after breakfast we all took the Panoramic Tour of Vienna on the bus while it was snowing. 

 Yes we take pictures of people taking pictures. :) 

We got off and walked in the snow for a while seeing the sights and then we went to St. Stephen's Church!  The architecture of this church is just beautiful.

 Most of our group.  Bernice and Shirley did a slightly different tour with less walking.  

After St. Stephen's we all needed to have something from one of the local Cafes.  We went to Aida Cafe!  Something warm for us all....hot chocolate, regular coffee and french press coffee along with some strudel for some, Viennese goulash for someone...can anyone guess who? Some sacher torte for others.  Wonderful cafe experience with a great waiter, Alvin! 

Some headed back to the ship for lunch to come back to the Christmas Markets after lunch.  Some of us decided to stay in Vienna City Center. First stop was Hard Rock Cafe for Cheryl to get her brother a shirt.  Then we were off to shop and and we were able to visit about 4 other markets along the way to the "big" market where we met up with everyone at the bus and then back to the ship for dinner. 

Here are some pictures from our afternoon in Vienna and of the Christmas Markets.  You will also see photos of the different streets around the city decorated with different themes. The architecture was stunning. 

 Some hat shopping by the men!

 We found Pandora...well Mark found it and then got afraid when we headed that way. Fortunately for the men the sales people were helping people and it was crowded so we didn't stick around.

 Our first Christmas Market in Vienna

Below is the fire station we found along our way to the next Christmas Market.

Our next market!

I was afraid Michael was going to get a Minion Hat.  EEK

 A snack attack hit and off to get a sausage to share with the spouses.  Poor lady didn't understand English but we had her laughing cause we didn't understand her and she realized it was all okay!

 Ice skating.... not us just watching others. 

 Michael with the fierce elephant lol

 Another end of the Christmas market!

 We just couldn't talk ourselves into trying one of these but don't they look yummy?

 Off to Cafe Einstein to wait on the bus to bring us back to the ship....it was warm and we needed to get warm.  Coffee with cream is served like this and Cheryl and I decided we kind of enjoyed it this way.

Someone had strudel...anyone know who? ;) 

The Christmas Tree on board the Viking Alta!

Dinner tonight ......

 Heirloom Beets and Cherry Tomatoes Confit

 Cream of Broccoli soup

 The Wiener schnitzel was very good

Forgot to take dessert pictures tonight. 

Bernice and Shirley went to the Mozart and Strauss concert at the Viennese Palace tonight after dinner. 

We will be sailing to Krems, Austria at midnight arriving at 8:00 am,  We will tour the Göttweig Abbey in the Wachau Valley in the morning.  We will have an early morning start so off to rest so we can be bright eyed. Seems weird we are ready for bed and you all are just in the middle of your day. 

More to come.....

Budapest Day 2 ~11/26/18

We finally were able to sleep and it felt wonderful.  We all met for breakfast at 7:30 and then departed on the Panoramic Budapest tour.  It really rained here all day but we saw a lot around the city.  We visited the Buda side of Budapest and visited St Matthias Church. 

Inside St Matthias Church

After visiting the church Michael and I went out to get some panoramic pictures of the city.  Like I said it was a very rainy day but I think these turned out pretty good.

A few sights on the way back to the bus!

 We only looked we didn't buy anything to eat. :)  

 We also got to visit our first Christmas Market.  Hard to shop outside with umbrellas everywhere but we did a walk around and got to try one of the famous chimney cakes.  Now that was something to watch them make those and it was delicious.  

We got toVienna about 6 pm tonight had our required safety drill, dinner and a game planning session for tomorrow.  We are doing the Panoramic Vienna Tour tomorrow and visiting as many Christmas Markets ad we can. 

I forgot to give you step count yesterday 11/25 - 8,157 (3.2 miles)

Today's step count 11/26 - 8,535 (2.34 miles) 

We plan to walk a lot tomorrow after our bus tour.  We may have several of inches of snow overnight but no rain or snow tomorrow in the forecast. So yay we don't have to take our umbrellas!  

Have a great rest of your day it is getting to be our bedtime. 

Stay tuned for hopefully more pictures and fun tomorrow. 

Budapest Day #1 ~11/25/18

We have arrived in Budapest!

We left Dulles about an hour late on Saturday. Our connection in Frankfurt was cut short and we were doing the hustle to get from point A to point B. We were doing great until we came up to the security check point....long slow lines!! Everyone was going through and headed to the gate......very long walk to the gate too!! Michael has his backpack snatched up to be searched he gets the all clear. Then here comes in of my bags and it gets snatched up and they said it swabbed positive for “EXPLOSIVES”! What me have explosives?!?! So now we have to wait for the POLICE! Eek so we send the last few of our group on to the gate.and Michael and I wait for the police! Turns out they had taken coffee break. When they started coming our way another agent grabbed them to go to another line and so we wait and we have less than 10 minutes until departure. I said I am going to miss my flight and the security agent just shrugs. Finally one of the policeman breaks away from the other line goes and gets another policeman and comes over and they speak German to each other and he says do you speak German or English. English I said he said well we have to empty your bag and then hopefully you can get to your flight on time. The security man pulls out my shaker bottle and says oh this is it ...it’s plastic with a small plastic ball and it was hanging out of the bag all that time. The policeman looks very embarrassed and tells him to put it in the bag and wishes me well and apologizes to me for the delay. Michael started to the gate  with a quick pace and I lost him in my line of vision but long and short of it we made it! Mark and Susan were waiting on the shuttle bus for us to head to the gate.  They were a sight for sore eyes.  I sat down in my seat and cried the poor guy next to me thought I was crazy I am sure.  Always be sure we will have some type of adventure to share. :)

We arrived in Budapest and we were brought to the ship for lunch and then  we had a Budapest City tour walk. Raining here but the river is so in need of it we can’t complain.

Here are. Few pictures from our walk!

Our Viking ship for the night we will tour Budapest tomorrow and then travel by bus to Vienna to finally reach our Viking Ship Alta.

Photo of the Central Market but we couldn't go in since it is closed on Sunday.

The Liberty Bridge 

Dinner  was a treat after a long hard day. Michael got his Hungarian Goulash! 

Stay tuned for more fun........

Night Before

It is 11:00 pm and Michael is sleeping but I am charging camera battery and making lists and checking things off.  So thought I would pop on here and let you know that I have had to unpack my suitcase of items several times already.  I don't know how anyone travels with winter gear for 11 days in 1 suitcase.  Michael asked me if I need my toiletries.  What is he crazy? Gee whiz!!  Of course his bag weighed 48.8 lbs and mine was 53 lbs!! Go figure!

But y'all let me tell you about these boots here that I purchased at Costco! 

I wore them to the Turkey Trot on Thursday morning and it was a very cold morning as you can see  from the screen shot below so I decided to check out my gear for our trip.

My  review of the boots is they are the bomb.com.  My feet never got cold and last year wasn't as cold and I had frozen feet they felt that way for hours.  So I  highly recommend these boots. I found out this morning that Michael could have had a pair if I had ordered them.  I hope his feet don't get too cold cause he can't fit into mine. 😌

 Ok I am going to try to sleep now.  :)  Stay tuned.....

T-5 Days for Judi and Michael's next dream vacation

Bet you thought we were done with traveling! NOT US!  We have done a few small trips that I didn't blog about but I wouldn't let you miss this trip!

Suitcases are out and we are preparing for our river cruise from Budapest, Hungary to Nuremberg, Germany with stops in Austria along the way.  Finishing up with 3 days in Prague!  Christmas Markets here we come!  Ok well Michael is more about the history! 😉

First things first....Thanksgiving is Thursday!  We have to go cheer for our daughter, Pam, as she runs in the annual Turkey Trot! 🦃🏃Then we have some cooking, eating and spending time with family to do.  Maybe even a bit of shopping but only if the packing is getting close to being done. 🦃🍽 🍂

Stay tuned to this blog channel for more travel fun in the coming days!  If you have subscribed you should because there is always an adventure along the way!