We're waltzing, we're waltzing... Vienna.
After our Budapest stop and a cursory tour of a pleasant-but-not-incredibly-memorable Bratislava, Slovakia, our ship cruised on to Austria's capital city of Vienna. I'd visited Austria before in the mid-1990s during a high school spring break trip, but my tolerance and appreciation for art, architecture, and history thankfully improved since my teenage years. The Viking ship was docked at a remote location away from the main city center, so we were bussed and taxi-ed into and out of the Ringstrasse, a main boulevard loop of the city. For fans of classical music, art, Baroque buildings, cafe culture, and royal history, Vienna is your place. The Hapsburg monarchy was based here, and the Hofburg Palace and surrounding complex of related residences, museums, monuments, and gardens could take days to see. My mom and I did a cursory walking tour with our group and then once that was over, we unintentionally toured a good bit more of Vienna by foot on a gray day. Traveling wi...