August 2016
We finally got to Vienna after all these years of traveling thanks to a river cruise. We spent two nights on the boat docked on the River Danube a bit northeast of the city center. The first day there, we were taken to a private concert hall for 75 minutes of music and dance, which was quite nice and a bit decadent. We enjoyed the concert, but we do not remember much about the details now. What we remember fondly is the city-sponsored bike sharing program that we took advantage of the second day.
Of all the bike share programs we’ve tried all around the world, this was the most generous and easiest to use. You can register online or at a bike station for 1 Euro(refundable). Then each ride is free up to an hour! This means you can use the bikes virtually for free all day as long as you either park or switch the bike every hour, which was not difficult to do since we wanted to stop and visit a site or take a break anyway. Vienna is very bike friendly, and bike lanes are clearly marked and well protected.
Of course we did join the tour to Schönbrunn Palace provided by the cruise company the next morning. The most impressive thing during this visit was the apple strudel we had at the cafe in the palace ground. As far as a palace goes, this was a rather moderate summer residence for the Royals.
We spent the afternoon tooling around on a bike visiting markets and the usual tourist attractions. My take was that 1.5 days in Vienna was not quite enough, but it was possible to cover the major attractions during that time. We’d prefer to spend at least 3-4 days there to really feel the city, though.
Small Wide World 