Vienna

Our apartment is a 30 minute walk from the city and we have walked for miles over the past 3 days. On Friday afternoon we went to the May festival - same as in Bratislava with bands playing and food and craft outlets.

We walked around the major sites on Saturday.  The city is very elegant but packed - possibly bad timing to come here on a public holiday weekend.  There are lots of men dressed in 18th century costumes trying to sell concert tickets. At one point, fed up with being hassled and asked where I came from (so they know which language to use in their sales pitch) I resorted to our technique developed when we were hassled in Egypt of flumoxing them by saying 'Jersey'. It worked.

We made sure we were at this clock at 12 noon as music plays and figures move across the front for a 10 minute show. It didn't keep good time though as it didn't start until 12.04!

We saw the famous Lipizzan horses in their stables but that is the closest we got as they even charge admission to watch them exercise.

This morning we had our regular Sunday morning skype chat with Jess and Ryan in New Zealand; proud of Ryan securing the job he was after with Treescape. Jess is still looking and will hopefully have good news soon.

We then went to watch the finish of a cycle race - the Gran Fondo Giro d'Italia - amazing to see the sprint finishes after 137 km.

 The winner;