On 11 October we parted from our friends Jon & Deb — we each took trains from Prague to different parts of Austria.  Teresa and I took the 5 hour ride to Vienna — arriving at our hotel about dark.  On the way, we researched things to do while in town.

Once checked in, we explored the neighborhood a bit to find a bite to eat.  One thing I noticed immediately – smoking is still allowed in Austrian restaurants, at the discretion of the owners.  It had been a long time since the sniff of stale cigarette smoke in a restaurant caused me to retreat in search of a different venue.  There are many smoke-free places to eat — just not all of them.  This was different from all the other countries we have visited since beginning this odyssey.

On Friday morning we decided to take a bus to the central city and get breakfast at the closest place we could find.

We took a long walk after breakfast and admired the view along the Donaukanal – formerly a channel of the Danube River which is now regulated by locks and provides some flood control for the city. From there we walked back to the city center so we could get a Hop On – Hop Off bus tour.

As we travel from city to city, we occasionally use HopOn-HopOff tours … sometimes we like them and other times it’s just not worth it … but we liked the Vienna tour — or what we saw of it.  It wound through the city past many museums and other places of interest which we will have to visit the next time we are in Vienna.  I think we could spend a week here very easily.

Vienna is the only major city in the world with a significant urban wine producing region.  Once our bus entered this part of town we began to see a lot of wine taverns and decided to hop off to get a bite and see the sights.  After an excellent lunch and a taste of the new (white) wine we hiked through vineyards uphill for about an hour until we got to the next spot where we could get back on the bus.

The next point of interest on the tour was the Spittelau Waste Incineration Plant.  As we got closer I glimpsed what appeared to be a huge and fantastical sculptural masterpiece.  When the old incinerator burned down some 30 years ago, the city decided to rebuild on the same spot, but to also create an art piece that would  set new environmental standards.  You really should go and see it for yourself someday…

The next day we flew to Malaga, Spain — my brother Dave and sister-in-law Ellen were spending a few days on the Costa del Sol and had invited us to join them at a really nice place on the beach near Marbella.

We had a very pleasant visit for a few days.  Lots of catching up to do, as well as touring some of the white villages of Andalusia including Mijas and Ronda.

Mijas is up in the mountains with a fine view of the coast.  Ronda is still higher, but further from the coast, and it has a very picturesque old bridge.  Both of them sparkle on a sunny day, as virtually all the buildings are whitewashed.

When Dave and Ellen flew home, Teresa and I spent a day in Malaga before taking the train back to Barcelona.  There is an interesting automobile/fashion museum there with some ancient auto makes and models I had never heard of.  It was all mixed up with displays of high fashion of the same periods.

On our last night in Malaga we visited a restaurant around the corner that appeared to be having a wonderful time with “Google Translate”.  I had the soup — it was delicious!