Given our hotel’s superb location at the foot of the Charles Bridge, consider tossing on your robe and wandering outside to have the monument all to yourself at the crack of dawn. After breakfast, we will make our way to Vienna, a total journey of around four hours. En route, we will enjoy lunch and wine tasting in the picturesque, hilly country of South Moravia, a long-established and fast-growing wine region.
While en route, our plan is to stop at Villa Tugendhat , considered to be the first truly Modernist house in the world, designed by Mies van der Rohe and the inspiration for a fabulous novel called The Glass House by Simon Mawer. It’s very difficult to get into, so we will do our best to get entrance tickets that are not available until the spring. Fingers crossed!
Grüss Gott! This afternoon, we will arrive into splendid Vienna and check into our stunner of a hotel, the Park Hyatt, located in the heart of the city.
After a rest, meet up to enjoy Adam tackling the Habsburg Empire with the help of wine and nibbles. It seems extraordinary, looking at Vienna today, that it started life as a Roman garrison tucked into a loop of the River Danube. As an early medieval trading center, it benefited from the ransom paid by the English to retrieve their captured Crusader king, Richard the Lionheart. Vienna used its new wealth to build walls and start a mint, both crucial to an ambitious city at the time. The Habsburgs began their rise to power when Rudolf I took the throne in 1278, although Vienna was initially overshadowed by Prague, just over a century later it became capital of the Holy Roman Empire. The city, growing ever more powerful, famously resisted successive Ottoman sieges, re-fortified itself and by the 18th century was transforming itself into a Baroque capital. Once released from the clutches of Napoleon, Vienna began to build on a monumental scale, controlling the Danube and cementing its status as a capital of culture, from Mozart to Jugendstil, or Art Nouveau. The Austro-Hungarian Empire ended with World War I and Austria was annexed by Hitler in 1938, a dark period in its history. Today, the center of the city is a UNESCO World Heritage site offering us a truly staggering buffet of art, music and beautiful parks.
This evening, enjoy dinner at leisure. Consider giving the kaffeehause culture a try and indulging in a slice of Sacher torte!
PARK HYATT VIENNA (B,L,R)