Lori and Troy do Europe 2025

Today it is raining and about 55 degrees. Fortunately we booked a 1 hour golf cart tour that had clear plastic side covers. Ali was our driver and served Prosecco which Lori took full advantage of. Our driver was very friendly and had a great personality. The rain did not stop the whole time so it was hard to get pictures through the plastic.

When he brought us back to our hotel we asked for a restaurant recommendation. There was is a restaurant right next to the entrance to our hotel and that was one of the places he recommended. It seemed convenient for him to recommend this restaurant because it was right there when we asked but it was really good! I had a pile of ribs and Lori had goulash. Of course we ended up sharing some Apfelstrudel and ice cream which I think is my new favorite dessert.

Since it was raining and cold we tried to do inside tours. Ali told us about some catacombs from back in the Black Plaque era. One of the locations was in the Saint Stephan Cathedral which is the really cool looking church near where we are staying. Lori found an audio tour which included a tour of the catacombs. The audio tour was interesting but we were really there to see death and bones. The catacomb tour started at 3:30pm so we stood near the stairs. Of course like every tour there is jockeying for position. It can be a little frustrating and usually puts me on high alert because I do not like cutters! This 6′ 11″ (I asked) German guide walked up to lead the tour. He presented the tour in German and English. He took us below the church where he showed us caskets of past Bishops and Arch Bishops. In another area there were priests that were in a Mausoleum style burial area. He then lead us to an area where royalty were buried. This church stores the organs of the deceased in urns. When they start leaking they place them in larger jars. There are also really small urns that hold still born baby organs. The Heart is kept at another church and the remaining body cavity is located in a 3rd church. Then he took us to where 11,000 people were buried due to the black plague. The black plague killed about ⅔ of the population. There were 2 levels and about 10-12 rooms on each level. We were not allowed to take pictures, even though there were some gore mongers sneaking pictures with their cameras. These rooms were filled with decayed wood caskets and tons of bones and skulls. Because they were running out of room they had to get creative. They forced the prisoners from the local jail to scrape the flesh from the bones and stack them up like cord wood. It turns out that we could have just purchased the catacomb tour for $7 at the stairwell. This little nugget of info is not on the internet.

We then went to a little cafe that was sheltered and had some wine and a Capri Spritz. The weather was still rainy so we did not tour much today. We had purchased tickets to an Opera right when we arrived so we had to kill time before it started at 8:15pm. We found a burger joint right across the street so we had some dinner and yes, had more drinks. I thought that I recognized this guy from our earlier tour but it turned out to be one of the Opera singers as we recognized him and the girl with him at the show. I feel like a missed a photo opportunity with them, had I known.

The Opera was in a Palace that was no longer being used by royalty. The room that the show was in looked amazing. The woodwork was incredible. The show lasted 1:15 hr with 2 encores. Lori and I really enjoyed the show but realized that about an hour is our max attention span for productions like this.

We took a tram back to the hotel and called it a night.