Cruise from Rome to Barcelona

I've shown you our cruise from Venice to Rome in September 2014...(March 2015 blog)

For our summer cruise a year later we had chosen a trip to the Baltic- Estonia, Sweden and Russia but as time went by we began to yearn to see Rome again and so canceled and instead found a cruise starting in Rome and visiting various Italian ports before terminating in Barcelona, Spain. Rome would be the only city we had visited before.We liked the idea of the warm Mediterranean with it's outdoor dining opportunities and ancient history, still alive today in the buildings left behind, over the cool of the Baltic.

We had been talking about Rome since our return home in late September. Neither of us had been in Italy for many years prior to that-in fact in my case my previous visit to Italy (Rimini) had been 49 years earlier!! How time flies...

To say we fell in love with Rome on that 2014 visit would be understating the matter. Every minute discovering that city was a joy.

Now with a new booking to arrange we immediately decided we would need two full days there before joining our ship in the port of Civitavecchia, 65 miles away.

As we would need transportation from the airport (Fumico) to our hotel and two days later a car from the hotel out to Civitavecchia I went on line and booked a car to do both using the excellent tour company Rome In Limo, which we had used a year before. The cost was $60 for the airport transfer and $160 to the port. You can pay in advance using a credit card. If you pay on the day you use their services you pay in Euros and we wanted to avoid carrying extra cash around when there was no need to.

With all the potential pickpockets in Rome awaiting our arrival the Euro cash we did take was carried in a money-belt I wore under my clothes and out of sight (and reach of pickpockets!).

We would need two hotels-one in Rome for two days and one in Barcelona for two days. For Rome we returned to Albergo del Senato which sits next to the Pantheon. It had been perfect for us a year before. For Barcelona I researched on Tripadvisor.com and found a classic elegant hotel which had been in business for 100 years-Hotel Majestic.

*This cruise was planned in March 2015 when we found we didn't have tickets to the Bayreuth Festival in Germany (see my first blog of the Festival in 2013) and Plan B was a cruise. The Baltic cruise we had originally booked and expected to cancel in favor of Bayreuth was now canceled in favor of Rome to Barcelona.

The itinerary which the cruise line changed when Tunis was considered too dangerous after some cruise passengers on MSC cruises were murdered by terrorists as they visited a museum. Salerno, near Naples, Italy would be substituted.

An app called Shipmate on my phone kept a countdown for us

 A weather app promised good weather in Rome during our weekend visit

When Wednesday September 23 finally came we were in O'Hare airport in Chicago waiting for our evening flight to Rome

Our aircraft was waiting for us

 And soon we were out on the runway as the sun was setting

Carol was anticipating what lay ahead after a 9 hour direct flight to Rome

And we are taking off on what should be another great adventure!

Arrivederci Chicago!

 Between movies and delicious meals I would keep track of our progress. I didn't sleep much.

By the time we had finished breakfast the West coast of Italy, North of Rome was appearing below us
(above us and it would have been a problem!)

And we are landing

The hardest part of our journey is over as we wait in a crowd for our luggage. Once we had our bags we would exit Baggage Claim and find our Rome in Limo driver waiting for us...

Next up- Rome!

Vienna streets

Vienna is one of those cities we know we'll be returning to someday-the lure will likely be some Opera performances. I don't know why it draws so many visitors other than people interested in classical music which it is rightly renowned for. It's a beautiful city to our eyes although it doesn't have iconic postcard sights as does London, Paris or Rome for example but the pace of life in the streets is more relaxed and that suits us. The famous Coffee Culture ensures that there are enough inviting cafes, indoor and outdoor, to sit at and enjoy watching the world go by. It's a city that doesn't encourage you (and I speak only for the two of us here) to rush around in a frenzy trying to see it all.

Although it's been three years since our second and currently last visit it is still vivid in my mind and each moment there was to treasure. The classic architecture, so different from Chicago, is one of the things that delights me so of course I had to get up early one morning for a picture-taking walk,even though I had a basic pocket digital camera back then. Now, armed to the teeth with a Canon DSLR camera I would probably want to wake even earlier (in Rome last September I was on the streets by 5 a.m, in the dark but of course Rome is even more photogenic than Vienna)

Being on the streets early-in this case I think it was just after 7 a.m-allows me to avoid crowds as they are still asleep following a night of drinking and dancing, while we slept. We are not Night Owls.

Here, just behind the Opera House is the Hotel Sacher on the right and in the same building the famous Cafe Mozart occupying the left corner of the building.You don't have to walk far between great coffee stops!

The interior of the Sacher Cafe, home to the famous Sacher Torte cake which we enjoyed.

Such elegant surroundings to indulge our passions for great coffee and delicious cake.

Across the street the Albertina Museum which we have yet to visit.

The quiet morning streets

The long pedestrian shopping street-the Graben. We are not shoppers.

I have the streets all to myself it seems

Clean streets to begin the day. Had it been a couple of hours later I might have met one of the small teams, usually two or three men, dressed in period costumes from the time of Mozart. They approach you (well, me at least) to entice you to enjoy some Mozart music performances for a fee-often string quartets. A polite "no thank you" or "danke nein" or in my case "I don't like Mozart" will end their pitch.

St Stephen's Cathedral

Closed to tourist visitors this early in the morning but later it will be besieged.

All the outdoor cafes are being set up for another day of brisk business. The shade umbrellas will be needed today.

The street which is home to Cafe Hawelka. We would visit it later that night. It's small dark and smoky so maybe not everyone's idea of a place to relax although it was "right up my street". We sat on very old furniture looking at walls that were stared at by penniless writers, political thinkers and philosophers  and people like me who drink good strong espresso and need an ashtray. Opened in 1939 and still going strong.

Cafe Hawelka

This city wakes up late. That's fine by me!

Buildings old...

 and new

The umbrellas on the roof tell us there is a restaurant up there. A visit there will have to wait until the "next time", whenever that might be.

After breakfast at the Opera Cafe with Carol we were back on the Graben and so were the late-risers

Two Mozart ticket sellers but they haven't seen us yet, so we tiptoe quietly around them

Our least favorite thing-crowds, but they are just doing what we are doing so I can't blame them. This is a peaceful, beautiful city to relax in.  You'll notice that none of my early photos had homeless people sleeping in doorways which is something I am used to seeing in Chicago, New York or San Francisco. I imagine they exist here but where are they? No beggars in the street. No one interrupting me at breakfast asking for a cigarette or some "spare change".

St Stephens Cathedral again

If you walk up the Graben to it's conclusion you come to the Donau-the river Danube

A sightseeing boat tour is highly recommended!

After a couple of days of world-class Opera performances, fine meals taken outdoors in good weather  
we would have to return to Munich for a day to catch our flight home.

The rental car had to be taken from the garage for one excursion before that return as we wanted to see what lay beyond the city. We chose a road trip out to Melk Abbey, a Benedictine Monastery if ever there was one. The town of Melk has stood at the feet of this mighty hill since 831 AD (before the Abbey was built of course.)

You can see the tourist buses parked which meant a lot of other people decided to visit today and there was a line to get in to the Abbey. It was such a pleasant day and there were some beautiful gardens (and places selling  refreshing beer!) that we decided to just enjoy the surroundings and skip a crowded tour. We would linger a while and then drive back to Vienna along the banks of the Danube.

There are car ferries if you want to take a short cut but that's not us. I love driving and seeing every turn in the road, which was all new to us and we were in no hurry.

We stopped outside a beautiful town called Durnstein where river cruises stop to allow their passengers to explore and buy fridge magnets. It was cooler under the trees. Atop a hill over the town stood a ruined castle where Richard the Lionheart had been imprisoned many years ago in 1192.

I am enjoying the shade and the cooling breeze from the Danube

Durnstein was so pleasing to the eye that we drove back through it to see it from the other side

And there found a statue of Richard and his sidekick minstrel Blondel playing a very early version of what would become the electric guitar.

We drove at a leisurely pace, stopping as often as we needed to for coffee or bathroom breaks before arriving back in Vienna and finding our way back to the Grand Hotel Wien for our last evening in the city. No Opera tonight, just a fine dinner outdoors at Cafe Mozart and an early night.

We had only one appointment on our last morning before driving back to Munich-a visit to the Spanish Riding School to see the Lippizaner Horses put through their paces by their skilled riders.
Alas Ciaran was no longer with us for this marvelous event as he had to return to Munich on our last night. I wasn't allowed to take photos of the performance as flash cameras would distract the horses from their obvious concentration as they and their riders put on a memorable show of skill and discipline.This is a stock photo, therefore.

And with that we've come to the end of our sojourn in Austria. I'm sorry that it has taken so long to finish it but life (i.e work and play) had got in the way recently.

I think we need another sea voyage....