Wow! What a day! We docked at Vienna early and as normal undertook a walking tour of the city with a guide.
Vienna, of course the capital of Austria is a bustling city of 1.7 million people with the centre of the city circled by the 5 sided Ringstrasse, effectively a city ring road on which the main cultural institutions are located.
Some of these institutions were impressive to say the least with Kim's jaw literally dropping as we sighted the Imperial Palace which was the winter residence of the previous ruling Habsburg family. With a staggering 4,500 rooms it is a palace by name and by nature. Adjacent was the Imperial Gardens which also housed a statue of Mozart; a beautiful precinct.
It's cultural overload in Vienna with many, many public buildings - museums, opera houses, libraries etc with each being of the most magnificent buildings. And it's even more impressive given that many, although not so many in Vienna, had to be rebuilt following WWII.
Following our morning walk, we toured Schonbrunn Palace, the summer residence of the Imperial Family which surprisingly was still within the city confines. The palace, yellow in colour, had only 1441 rooms (!) and has beautiful expansive gardens, which also houses the Vienna Zoo. This provides some idea of it's size. Photos were prohibited inside but the rooms themselves were staggering with the quality and extent of their decoration.
To complete our Viennese Cultural Experience, in the evening we went to an orchestral concert with soloist opera singers. This was a wonderful experience as music and the opera is very much a mainstay of daily Viennese life and we were privileged to be a part of it.
Public transport seemed to be excellent and with the beauty of the city including 120 major public parks, we felt it was a place where we would like to spend more time.
It was a huge ........ but hugely enjoyable day.