Tuesday, January 1, 2019: Day 5; Vienna

OMG, I left one of the two window curtains open last night thinking it would help me know when to get up. Our itinerary called for us to have coffee and sweets in the dining car between 8:30am and 9:15am with a departure from the train at 9:30am. When I finally rallied myself and looked at the clock, it was already 9:00M. I quickly shaved and woke Gavin. We made it to the platform by 9:30am.

We took the bus to the city center where we boarded horse drawn four hand carriages for a tour of the center of Vienna…on a cold New Year’s Day morning. At least it was not snowing or raining…only a light drizzle with temperatures around 35F and a light to moderate breeze out of the northwest, resulting in a wind chill somewhere between tolerable and very chilly.

The carriage ride lasted about an hour and we were unloaded at the Palace Coburg for a brunch, which was excellent, but last until 2:00pm. We watched the Vienna Symphony play its annual New Year concert via closed circuit. The brunch was held in the "basement" of the palace, which I am convinced used to be sewer.

Palace Coburg

One note about the brunch…they offered freshly shucked oysters on the half shell…WAY TOO BRINIY. I meant to ask where these were from so that I could avoid them in the future, but I forgot to do so.

At 2:00pm we finally finished brunch and divided up into two groups. One was to visit the Imperial summer palace (Schonbrunn) and the other was heading to the monastery of Helligenkreuz. Gavin went to the palace and I went to the monastery since I had visited the palace when I was here in August.

On the bus ride to the monastery, we took a photo stop at St. Othmar church. It was built in the 15^th century. From the grounds, we had a great view of the aqueduct that brings water to Vienna from the Austrian Alps.

St. Othmar church

Aquaduct

The monastery of Helligenkreuz (holy cross) is supposedly the second-oldest Cistercian monastery in the world (founded in 1133) and the oldest one to be continuously inhabited and still active. Today, there are about 60 monks at the monastery. The monks “live in the rhythm of ‘ora et Labora – pray and work’”. While originally they practiced total silence, now it is only maintained between 8:00am and 6:00pm.

Monastery

monastery courtyard

Closter

Closter courtyard

Tombstones which used to be on the floor, now stood up to preserve the inscriptions

Natural spring inside closter

Chamber of the dead

Meeting chamber

Church

Monastic Gin in the gift shop

It was getting cold and windy so we did not spend much time looking around the courtyard, going into the Closter. This got us out of the wind, but, not being heated, did not make the situation much better. We toured around the Closter and then entered the church, which was huge and also not heated. On the way out, we stopped in the gift shop where I picked up my first souvenirs of the trip.

We arrived back at the train around 6:30pm. Diner was at 7:30pm and the train pulled out of the station for the Czech Republic at 7:32pm.

Tonight, the train will stop at Eggenburg, Austria at 9:15pm and we will stay stopped until about 4:30am.