Vienna and the Danube

Hi all,
Just left Vienna on the hydrofoil to Budapest, along the Danube river.
Vienna was a very lovely city - we enjoyed it immensely.
Lucy joined us on Friday and we all stayed in our apartment (Opera suites), as the name implies it was next door to the Opera in the heart of Vienna. A great spot. There was even an Aussie bar around the corner. I went in there Fri. afternoon because they were showing the cricket live, bought a local brew (although I could have bought VB, Crownies, XXXX, Tooheys,etc..)watched 1 over then they went off for bad light!!!
Before Lucy arrived, we went for a short walk around the "Inner Strade", and were impressed with the buildings, cathedral, sculptures and open spaces. Not as grand as Paris but lots of similarities. friday evening, we had dinner, but only Lucy had a Wiener Schnitzel (Wien is the Austrian name for Vienna).
Saturday we spent the day walking around the "Ringstrasse", which has all the prominent museums, parliament, fountains, churches, monuments.... very pretty city! See web album to see the sites.
Sat. night dinner, I went for the Wiener Schnitzel washed down with a nice local brew (1516).
Sunday morning, we rose earlier to catch the hydrofoil to Budapest. The trip was about 6 hours long (inluded 2 half hour stops at locks) and overall not bad. The hydrofoil averages about 68 kmh and was very comfortable. For the majority of the trip there wasn't much to see, but there were some very pretty towns and cities along the way. We also passed Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, which sits on the Danube.
We have been blessed with the weather so far, most days for the past two weeks has been between 25 and 30 C. Yesterday on the hydrofoil was about 33 C and when we arrived in Budapest at 3pm it was very warm and a bit humid.
Will write about Budapest in a few days, but so far it looks great!