VIENNA (WIEN) Is one of the most romantic places on earth. Maybe it's the music. We were treated to an excellent program at Kursalon Concert House on one of the evenings we were there. Mahler and Strauss never sounded better.One of the things I especially like about Vienna is that it is at once very old and very new. There is a lesson in it for all of us who were on this river cruise together, except for Doug who is still too young to have to work at being old and somehow new all at the same time.
My earliest memories of VIENNA are associated with St. Stephen's Cathedral, of coming around a corner and being awed by the physical presence of the great church...the tile roof and the great eagles. The Romanesque part of the church was dedicated in the middle of the 12th century. Later it morphed into its present mostly Gothic form. Part of the Cathedral is shrouded for renovation, but it is still mighty impressive. The organ pipes above are in St. Stephen's, but the church steeple on the hill in the photograph below rises up from a church near Shonbrunn Palace.