After Stephansdom, we made our way past Mozart's house (!) to a smaller, quieter church known as Franziskanekirche. Absolutely beautiful, and very peaceful... Completely empty. We spent a few minutes inside looking at the church and marveling at the beauty of it. After this, we made our way past Vienna's opera house to the Soviet war monument to the 17000 Soviet soldiers killed in the Vienna Offensive in April of 1945. The memorial, sometimes referred to as 'the...

Brilliant day in Vienna today! Very beautiful, well organized and not very crowded city! Started off our day by walking in the wrong direction, but once we got that figured out, we made our way to an old flak tower in Esterhazy (not Sask!) Park that had been converted to a zoo and climbing wall! After this, we made our way to the Hofburg, where we spent some time in the peaceful green space there. After this, we passed through the Monument against War and Fasci...

Passed into Austria this afternoon, had no problem whatsoever moving up our train schedule to get to Wien as we'd originally planned. The terrain here is beautiful, the weather is warm, and the people are organized. The massive mountains and wide river beds remind me a fair bit of the area around Jasper, on the Edmonton side. Guten tag to der Osterreich!

Bit of a hiccup this morning, as we took the water bus to the train station to find out that we were taking a bus, not a train, and also that we needed to reserve tickets, which the ticket agent in Rome said wasn't necessary. Since it was twenty minutes until our bus left, the ticket agent booked us seats on the bus leaving 2 hours later. But lucky for us, we rushed and caught the 'people mover' from Venice to its bus station and managed to catch our 1120 bus! On...

Train day today, to Vienna. We leave Venice at 1120 and arrive just before 2000. We've enjoyed our brief time in Venice, going out for a nice supper and gelato last night.