Vienna

Aug 2 - Vienna
Thankfully I woke today feeling fine. Managed some tea and toast, and then off on our trip. We had chosen the Spanish Riding School. There was a bus load of very angry people when we found the horses were on summer vacation and not preforming. All that we were shown was the stables (which smelt) and the tack room. It certainly was not what we had been promised.

Vienna is a huge city. Similar buildings to Budapest but cleaner and better maintained with a number of very modern building as well. We went briefly into St Stephens Chruch. It is quite beautiful. We were told to be extremely careful and pick pockets who were having a field day today. If someone stops you to ask a question you just ignore them and move on.
We came back to the boat for lunch - Den had a snooze and I went back into town on the shuttle bus for a look around.
Tonight was an Italian banquet - as we were finishing the staff brought out a huge Birthday cake for our boat the Scenic pearl is one year old today - we all sang Happy Birthday.
Afterwards I expressed my disappointment to the Cruise Director that we were not informed that the horses would not be performing (because if we had known we would have chosen one of the other options) He must of realised how unhappy we were as when we went back to our room the was a bottle of champagne in a silver ice bucket awaiting us. We went to find the people we have been meeting up with, to share the bottle, and also to thank Freddie for the apology and the champagne and he said he would like also to up grade us to the top level of cabins so we now have a balcony and a butler. I'm sure in future more will be done to let people know what is happening.
At 23.45 we sail to Durnstein.