Mozart Konzerte at Schloss Schonbrunn Palace

Vienna, Austria

Georges is the French-Canadian we met on the boat who works in Bahrain. Following his advice, we navigate in the morning to the Cafe Mozart and try the best chocolate cake in Vienna (or possibly on Earth)...Thanks Georges for the tip. It was very good...

It's still very cold and raining after three days, but our colds are getting better...

 Tonight they had a special Mozart concert in the Schloss Schonbrunn Palace which was built by the Hapsburgs as the seat of the Austrian empire...

 They do some waltz music that I recognize..it's an experience...

 The room for the concert would neatly enclose four copies of the large two story house we used to live in...

It's not Jimi Hendrix, so after awhile I start estimating how many light bulbs are in the room. I count 44 chandeliers with 8 bulbs and 26 with 16 bulbs...In addition the two large central chandeliers have 80-100 bulbs each...they are hard to count...

 Somehow listening to Mozart tunes in Vienna make me think of all the people I knew who died young in one foolish adventure or another and never got to check this one off their bucket list...

On to Budapest in the morning...

Vienna

The night train from Venice arrives about 8 AM. It's raining and about 45 degrees F. (8 C.) with high winds. The weather won't change much the three days we have scheduled to be here.

 We figure out the underground system. It's numbered like German submarines (U-1, U-4, etc.).

 Both Mrs. Phred and I have developed bad colds, which doesn't help.

 The hotel is very nice. Sort of a modern business hotel called the Falkensteiner. It reminded me of a computer game I had 20 years ago called "Wolfenstein"....Argie stayed up all night playing it on a summer night in my old RV.

When you take a long vacation, not all the stops work out.

 Something to eat back in Venice.

 Breakfast on the overnight train...

With all this rain, it would be nice to have my old green umbrella. We borrow two umbrellas from the front desk but the wind destroys them both as we turn the first corner...the hotel is very nice about it...

We take a taxi to an Austrian restaurant...wienersnitzel and stuff like that...the modern art museum is very disappointing compared to many others we have seen...dull..sterile..unimaginative...all Tom's stuff is better than anything they had here...very curious..