Europe Day 16 – September 4th

35 Celsius and Sunny

This is the sixteenth of twenty posts documenting Margaret-Ann and John’s 2011 trip to Europe.

After breakfast at the Hotel Daniel, it was off to the Hauptbahnhof (central train station). Margaret-Ann and John thanked Sigrid and Sepp for showing them more of Bavaria and helping them understand the Bavarian lifestyle. Sepp, like his brother Rudi, only does things at 110 per cent – Margaret-Ann and John truly appreciated all his efforts! Waving goodbye to Sigrid and Sepp, Margaret-Ann and John settled in for the four hour train ride to Vienna.

Waltraud, Sepp’s sister and, of course, John’s cousin, and her husband, Sonny, met Margaret-Ann and John at Vienna’s Westbahnhof train station just before 2:00 p.m. and helped them navigate the U-Bahn to their centrally located Mercure Zentrum Hotel. While checking in, they met Edith and Christina, also Sepp’s sisters and, of course, John’s cousins.

For the rest of the afternoon Sonny (who seemed to know every lane and passageway like a seasoned Viennese resident) and Waltraud led the group on a tour of many of the sites of the stunningly beautiful central Vienna – including:

• Stephansdom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral – Vienna’s most famous landmark)
• Peterskirche (St. Peter’s Church)
• The Hofburg (the former palace of Austrian sovereignty)

In the evening, the group took the U-Bahn and a tram out to Grinzing and dined at Weingut Heuriger Reinprecht, a vineyard restaurant in a 300 year old house – John had fantastic tafelspitz!

On the way back to the hotel, the group stopped to listen to organ music in the Stephansdom, and some of them had an ice cream night cap before turning in.

And so ended day sixteen of Margaret-Ann and John’s 2011 European trip. Keep checking the blog for more postings of this trip.

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