Vienna

Today begins with a city tour by coach under a blazing sun. Sprinkled among the old beautiful buildings are many statues and monuments of old muscians. Maybe someday there'll be one of my brother someplace.

We stop at Belevedere palace - no longer a palace but an art museum. Not huge, but quite a few pieces I recognize. I have to say, I could do without museums that aren't art museums. I could spend all day in an art museum.

During our own time in the city we get some take-away calamari from Nord See. This place seems prolific in Europe - like a European McDonald's. We've seen in a lot of these places on this trip and remember them from previous trips. - I Iove street food! If I wasn't so chicken to talk to people in a foreign language all I'd ever eat would be street food!

We quickly get back to the ship for lunch and off again in the afternoon to tour the Schonbrunn Palace. This is Vienna's version of the Versaille palace. It is smoking hot and quite crowed- needless to say, the palace is not air conditioned. It is even hotter when we tour the garden.

Before we get back on the bus we have a bit more street food. This time it is ice cream, but not an ordinary cone. You pick a flavor and the ice cream guy puts a tubular thing of the ice cream substance in a contraption with a handle that he then pulls down like a slot maching. This turns the 'stuff' in the tub into a soft-serve ice cream type substance. Not exactly fresh with no preservatives, but tasty and entertaining.