30 - 6/30/2015 - Vienna Day 1

Saturday - May 30

We visited four churches today - a single day record for the Trumps!  (Then again, they were practically next to each other.) St. Peter's Church had a choral presentation underway when we arrived.  The acoustics are beautiful.  Leopold I ordered this church to be built as a thank-you for surviving the 1679 plague. "Baroque Vienna is at its best in this gem, one of the city's most beautiful and ornate churches."

Being Saturday, everyone was out enjoying the sunshine in this plaza.  An oom-pah-pah band was playing in front of St. Stephen's Cathedral. There were also art and craft vendors and a carousel.  

Norm says he tries hard to fit in with locals, blending in with blah colors and not being obvious. Yet here he is, caught wearing a Rick Steves' backpack with a Rick Steves' Guide to Vienna in his back pocket, entering a Starbucks! You decide - native or tourist hypocrite?  

Pam is trying to model like the ooh-la-la statues. The t-shirt stays on!

At the Spanish Riding School, Pam could only snap photos of the Lipizzaner horses from across the stable courtyard. They looked energetic just standing still.

Some have asked, "Norm and Pam, why did you treat Prague so brusquely, with a only a drive by shooting (of photos)?" Once the number of trip days became fixed by the air return reservation, days available became finite. Once on the road we decided we needed three more nights than were available. Two were for Karlovy Vary and one is for a must-see spa later on in Austria. Asking people as we traveled, reviewing Trip Advisor and other sources it was Prague that drew the short straw and lost its nights. Exemplary sites and sights Prague may have, but life is cruel.  And that's the rest of the story.