The Blue Danube

Met Richard for breakfast.  Great spread here - lots to eat and choose from.  Fully sated,. we headed out for cruise along the Danube.  Sat with a wonderful young woman from England and had a great time chatting with her.  The cruise, however, left a lot to be desired.  Not much to see and once we hit the lock, we were there for a very long time.  We had booked a full round trip, but since we were all starving we decided to hop off at the half way point and grab some lunch.  We all had had enough of the Danube.  Plus I had forgot to bring Jerry B. for his river experience.  I was kinda bummed at that.  We decided that we would go down for dinner by the river tonight and have our little ceremony.

Anchor Clock

Found this great little Italian cafe and had a very nice lunch in the garden.  Geoff got fish, Richard had pizza and I am back on salads for a while.  After lunch, Richard wanted to see this old clock that is pretty special to Vienna.  It is called the Anchor Clock.  It has 12 characters and at noon it is something to see.  It wasn't noon but we looked at it anyway.  This happened to be right in the Jewish section.  So we took a short walk to the synagogue but it was closed.  Walking back to the square, we came up on a beautiful statue.  I had no idea what it was about, until a woman standing by me started to explain that it was the marriage of Mary and Joseph under the chuppah - because they were Jews. You never see statutes erected for the Jews, so this was something.  She told us where the Holocaust Memorial was and that there was something going on at the synagogue at 4:30 which she was going to be attending.

The Memorial was at the Judenplatz which was just a few short blocks away.  We trucked down there.  There was a museum but we had seen enough of Jewish history and thought that the synagogue might hold more interest.  Since it was close to 4:30 we walked back.  Everyone was very nice, however, the speaker was in the community center and not the synagogue.  There was a couple speaking from Germany who had their art on display.  We went in for a bit and chatted but never got to see the synagogue.  Oh well.

Back at the hotel, we were beat and nixed the river idea.  There would be other chances.  Geoff went down to the lobby to print some info for the bike trip.  I met him after a bit and when I got down there, our friends had all showed up.  These are the guys that we will be biking with for the next week.  They decided to go down to the river for dinner, so we quickly ran up and grabbed Jerry and headed out with them.  Wound up at what was basically a rib joint.  No English menu, but with the help of a very nice lady, we were all able to order what we wanted.  On the walk back, Geoff & I ducked under the bridge for our Jerry B. moment.  Next stop for him will be Budapest.

We are back in the room.  Have reorganized our stuff for this bike trip.  Tomorrow looks like it is going to be cold with heavy rains.  Geoff, Richard and I might start day one off on the train.  Don't care.  Not going to kill ourselves.

Next time... Going to Bad Deutsch