July 3 - Thursday
Cruise Day! Since we didn't need to be at the dock until 11:30, we waited until 8 a.m. to go downstairs for breakfast. That was a mistake. It was so crowded, we had to sit in the raised, "reserved" section.

We took Tram 44/Tram 1 to Schwedenplatz. We found the "ticket booth" and turned in the prepaid voucher for our tickets. We still had a while to wait for boarding at 11:00, so we went back up to street level and crossed over to the platz for people - and pigeon - watching.

The boat ride was awesome. We sat on the upper deck, which was covered but open to the breeze. We went through locks to get from the Danube Canal to the Danube River and back. For lunch, we ordered salads and a cold platter. The salad included lettuce & tomatoes, cabbage salad and potato salad and the cold platter had bologna, cold bacon, salami, ham and cheese. We both had apple juice to drink.

After the cruise, we rode U1 to Stephansplatz. We finally found Der kleine Hobbit in the lower basement of Frick, a bookstore in the Graben. Then we went to Demel for Sacher Torte and Apfel Küchen. After some shopping at Julius Meinl supermarket, we went back to the hotel to start packing. Later, we asked at the front desk for a nice restaurant for dinner. The clerk directed us two blocks down the street to the Hinter Holz. We asked the waitress/hostess if they took credit cards. She tried to get the paper roll back into the card machine, then apologized with a shrug. I asked if there was a bankomat (ATM) nearby & she directed us to Interspar, a small Wal-mart-like store with a bank machine in a locked lobby (you needed to be a customer of that particular bank to get in after hours). Fortunately, there was a customer coming out, so we went in as she left. We went back to the restaurant and had a wonderful meal of Wiener Schnitzel and bier.

Back at the hotel, we asked the best way to get to the Südbahnhof to catch our train in the morning. The clerk said to get on U6 at the underground station across from the restaurant, get off at Westbahnhof and take Tram 18 to Südbahnhof. Sounded better than paying for a taxi, since we already had transit passes.