Vienna, Austria

After Tom’s conference in Stuttgart, there was a holiday weekend so we decided to go on another short trip.  We  went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Stuttgart with the Trapuzzanos.  Then we drove to Munich.  We got there late and stayed at a hotel.  The next morning, we got up early and drove to the train station.  We parked our car a the Munich Hauptbahnhof and then took a train to Vienna, Austria.  Vienna is the capital of Austria and home to 1.6 mililion people.  It is a gorgeous city and reminded me of Paris.

 When we got into town, we stopped at the hotel to drop off our bags.  Then we headed to Schonbrunn Palace which was the summer residence of the Habsburg family.  It was built in the mid-18^th century for the Empress Maria Theresa (Marie-Antoinette’s mother).   The palace has over 1,440 rooms!  We took a tour through the palace and saw the apartments of Franz-Joseph the last Austrian emperor.  His wife Sisi was quite a sensation in Austria.  She was a tiny, fashionable empress.  She was assassinated in 1898.  Each of the palaces showed her wardrobe, workout room, and apartments.

After we toured the gigantic palace, we walked through the beautiful gardens.  They were gorgeous and reminded me of Versailles.  There were many huge fountains.  We hiked to the top of the hill to see a small pavilion that overlooked the palace.  The Habsburgs had concerts and theater performances at the pavilion. 

After we toured the palace, we took a metro over to an area called the Prater.  This is the cities fairgrounds and they permanently have rides and concessions.  We tried to get Ainsley to ride a Merry-go-round.  For a year, she has been telling us that she will ride on the carousel horses when she turned four.  Well, she is four now so we tried to get her to ride them, but she still refused.  She did agree to sit on the carriage.  She took one ride.  Then we bought some carni-food including a gigantic scone called an Elephant ear.  We thought it would be sweet, but they actually salted it which was not our favorite. 

 

 

Then we headed back to the Shonbrunn Palace.  We had seen an add for a marionette show and thought it would be something Ainsley would like.  It turned out to be a Marrienette version of Mozart’s opera called “The Magic Flute.”  It was a tiny theater and there were only about 15 people in the audience….all adults.  It turned out the kids version was during the afternoon and the evening performances were mostly for adults.  We sat in the back but were really self conscious about every sound Sam made because we were worried he would ruin everyone else’s experience.  So at intermission, I took Sam home to the hotel to put him to bed.  Tom and Ainsley stayed to watch the rest of the performance.  She seemed like she liked it.  After the performance, they opened the back and invited everyone to come backstage to see how they perform a marionette show.  Tom said the strings were about 6 feet tall and the puppeteers walk around on a platform above the stage.  It was really neat to see.

The next morning, we went to the Hofburg Palace Complex.  This was the winter residence of the Habsburg family and center of the government.  It is also the center of Vienna and all the major streets and sites surround it.   We walked around and saw the Vienna Opera House and some beautiful pedestrian shopping areas.  Then we walked back to the Spanish Riding School.  Tom and Ainsley got tickets to see the morning practice of the famous Lippizaner Stallions.  Unfortunatley kids under 4 aren’t allowed because they don’t want crying or noise to distract the horses.  So while Tom and Ainsley watched the horses practice, Sam and I went on a tour of the churches in the area.  I love to go into cathedrals, whereas Tom does not…so it was the perfect fit.  I found three different baroque style Catholic cathedrals.  Each one was more elaborate and exquisite than the one before it.  After touring the churches, I walked around the shopping area for awhile.  We planned to meet up at noon.  When I met up with Tom, he informed me that the practice continued for another half an hour.  He gave me his ticket so I could go watch the last 30 minutes of the Lippizzaner stallions. 

The Spanish riding school where the Habsburg family trained their military horses.  It started in the 1500s.  These horses are carefully bred and trained.  They travel the world performing their unique movements and prancing style.   The horse are born either bay or black and their coats turn gray overtime.  By the time they are adults they have a pure white coat.  This is why when you see a performance of the Lippizaner stallions, they are all white horses.  They train them in groups of 5.  Tom and Ainsley watched four different groups train and I saw the last group of 5 train. 

While I was inside, Ainsley and Sam played in the courtyard.  Ainsley had fun watching a gold-painted street performer who was dressed like Mozart and whistled all his songs.  She gave him some money and he took a picture with her.   Tom loves to whistle and whistles all the time so I teased Tom that he could quit his day job and become a whistling street performer if he wanted. 

 

We were hungry so we went to find some lunch.  We found an awesome wurst stand.  We had delicious wursts and then we walked around.  We watched some street performers and then headed to St. Stephen’s Cathedral which is the cities main church.  It had solid stain glass windows that created a really neat affect when the sun shone through them.

 

Next we went into the Hofburg Palace which was the winter residence of the Habsburg family.  It looked very similar to the Schonbrunn Palace and every other palace we’ve seen in Europe.  I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we were kinda tired of seeing another palace.  After the palace, we went and sat on the grass for awhile to relax in the shade.    Then we walked back to the train station.  We caught our train to Salzburg for the second part of our Austria adventure.