Austria - 2002

With an around the world air ticket, we flew out of Melbourne on the 10th of May to Vancouver in Western Canada.
 Next flight was to Calgary then we flew over the North Pole to Frankfurt
 in Germany where we went on a Trafalgar Highlights of New Europe tour.
(Frankfurt to Berlin, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Austria, The Czech Republic and Rothenburg before returning to Frankfurt.)
After this tour we flew to Istanbul in Turkey and went on a Trafalgar tour of Turkey.
Then to Singapore via Dubai and back to Melbourne after 54 days.


From Gyor in Hungary we crossed the border into Austria and traveled to Vienna.

Vienna
As we had been to Vienna previously we tried to visit some places that we had not seen before.
After the coach sightseeing trip around the ring road we walked down the Karntner Strasse and toured the Opera House.
We had dinner at a winery in the Vienna Woods at night.

 

The Hofburg Palace In Vienna, Austria.

We did not go the optional tour of the Schonbrunn Palace as we had been there before.

We were taken on a tour of the sights on the ring road which was built on the site of the old wall that was around Vienna.


 

 

 

 

More sights along the ring road in Vienna including the statues of Maria Theresa and Strauss, the Art and Natural History Museums and The Rathaus (Town Hall).

After this tour we walked up the main pedestrian way, Karntner Strasse to St. Stephens church where had a good look inside.

       

 

 

 

 

More pictures of churches and the Hofburg Palace in Vienna.

There are excavations of Roman ruins in the centre of Vienna.

       

       

 

 

 

We had coffee and cake at Cafe Mozart in Vienna and dinner at a winery in the Vienna Woods.

The Vienna Opera House

 We visited 3 chambers before going to the main auditorium.

Besides the general seating and lots of tiered boxes there was 2 areas of standing areas.

The seats were covered in plush velvet and had electronic text displays built into the back of them.

 


There was a very large stage area and lots of stage hands. They have a different production every night.

The main auditorium had a massive Swarowski chandelier that has over 1200 bulbs.

             

From Vienna we crossed into The Czech Republic.
Our first stop was at Lednice where we wandered through of Lednice Castle, a former hunting lodge of the Liechtenstein family.