Vienna to Villach

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It was a long day on the bus today! We all had our turn on the front row today. It was a bright sunny cloudless day all day. As Mom said, what kind of geographical anomaly caused her to be staring into the sun all day! We drove south all morning and west all afternoon. We had buffet breakfast at the hotel at 7am, bags out first, bus departure at 8am. We had a pee break at a truck stop about 9:30am. We arrived in Graz in late morning for a quick visit and free time to have lunch. We had a quick orientation around the city hall or rat haus and central square. All quite charming and attractive. Then we searched local drugstores and ate pretzels or sausages in the square. Per Stephane's advice we walked to see the Graz Landhaus. It was historic and a landmark but he never did tell us later about it as promised. We had a welcome surprise stop in Barnbach at St. Barbara Church. It was a Hunnertwasser building! Around 12:45pm, we arrived at the Piber Lippazaner Stud Farm. We had about an hour long guided tour there. The Spanish Riding School in Vienna is closed now, but we'd been before. We felt bad Mom & Carol were missing it, so this was a good makeup. It was cool to get near and be able to touch all the mares, colts, fillys and stallions. You couldn't have seen them all or touched them in Vienna. We drove on to arrive at Kloster Wernberg around 5pm. This was our Trafalgar Tours' "Be My Guest" experience or dinner. We had a short guided tour by Sister Monika who had spent 37 years, or her adult life there. It was a stunning setting and quite beautiful. They run a farm and a B&B there. The guests put on a concert after our dinner and we left about 8pm. We arrived to the Romantik in Villach about 8:30pm. Villach was a beautiful town in its own right and we drove our huge bus right through the pedestrian streets like a parade to get here. It is meant to be quaint and charming, which means it is old and without air conditioning on what has been a glaring, unrelentingly hot day. We are away at 8am again tomorrow.

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