Monday March 28: Vienna

Well here it is Wednesday and we are just doing Monday and Tuesday! Oh well, much to report. Monday morning was overcast and 50s. We were met by Alex (nice ride for Ian in the Z4!) and went to the cafe in MAK (a museum of arts and crafts for breakfast): lots of reminiscing and catching up. Ian's first latte went quite well! Then Alex went off to work and we three wandered around central Vienna. Our photos from that day are still to be sorted but we saw the Hofburg, the Spanish Riding School,the Belvidere Palace (including its Klimt collection), one of Mahler's residences, the home of the Vienna Philharmonic (see the poster for a sold-out concert conducted by Franz Welser-Most, our Cleveland Orchestra guy), etc. etc. See Ida in front of the Philharmonic. See the forces of righteousness slaying the witch who represents the Black Plague (on the statuary column). Coffee downtown followed, then a peek into the magnificent St. Stephen's Cathedral. We located some nice Adidas for Ian! We found a great little fondue restaurant called Chameleon for dinner, then Alex found us and we walked back to her apartment for desert and a slideshow of Mercer photos. That went on a bit. Do you have ANY IDEA how many pictures of Ginger and Cornelius we have? Wow. Back to the apartment to sleep, as we need to get up early for our day trip to Budapest.