Well, this was certainly an interesting day…definitely not as planned. It was pretty uneventful until I checked our email. The confirmation for our tickets for this evening’s performance at the Spanish Riding School indicated the performance was for September 26th not June 26th. My fault I misread the website. Disappointed, we’ve requested a refund, which shouldn’t be a problem. Second problem was that George’s email was spoofed and we started getting interesting messages asking if we were really in Turkey and needed money! Not sure yet how to fix this from here.

Our touring today consisted of a bus tour of the inner city where we learned about the Hapsburg Palace – 17 wings and 2800 rooms – the city hall, Beethoven’s itinerant lifestyle – 80 different apartments durin his lifetime – and a number of special gardens. This was followed by a wonderful visit to the Museum of Fine Art. The building itself is a masterpiece, specifically built as a museum. Each of the ceilings in the small rooms were painted with different motifs, so it was important to look up as well as looking at the art. Since our planned event for the evening didn’t materialize we decided to go to the organ, trumpet and tympani concert at St Charles Church. We thought we were going to do that last night but they had printed the date incorrectly in the travel brochure. The concert was quite interacting since the organ console was at the back in the balcony, eliminating the possibility of watching the organist play for his solos pieces. For the pieces with trumpet and tympani, they used a small choir organ at the front of the church, which was keyboard only. The inside of the church was very ornate in the baroque style and provided interesting eye candy during the concert.

I guess you’re a seasoned traveller when none of this rattles you – relax and just go with the flow. Tomorrow should be better and hopefully we’ll be on a bus touring the Danube Valley.