5 Days in Vienna

Grüß Gott! From Vienna!
(Sounds like kroosgot, meaning Hello or literally, God's Greeting)

Wednesday
Arriving in Vienna at lunchtime on Wednesday, our first priority was to find transport information, tickets and our hotel. I had made the insanely brilliant mistake of leaving behind our lifesaving piece of paper with our Plzen to Vienna train details and our hotel details, and just to keep things interesting, my Vodafone GPRS connection didn't work so we couldn't even go online to find the name/location/phone number of our hotel. But never fear, Colin with his new PDA Travel-Mate, tom-tom navigator and GPS did some fantastical manoeuvres and we found our hotel. (The local travel agent/info centre also helped mind you with maps and tram info for getting to the hotel)


As we are waiting for Tram Nr 5 to take us to hotel it starts to rain. After just having "happy meals" and playing at the McDonalds play area, the girls are in high spirits waiting for our tram. (I still really struggle with the idea that we arrive in Vienna and have McDonalds, but hey, we are not alone in this journey and a 3 & 4 year old can be very persuasive!)

When we arrived at our hotel, we had the most magnificent view over the city, and were just in time to watch a storm blow in from the mountains with a veritable hail/rain storm which lasted for about an hour.
Fortunately, it was more like the JHB thunderstorms in summer and it cleared up to give us the most beautiful blue skies. We took immediate advantage and headed to the Danube Tower to get our first glimpse of Vienna at night with the most incredible view.
At the top, there was also a revolving restaurant where we stopped for supper. The girls were totally fascinated with the desert table that kept rotating (it took us a while to get them to understand that the desert table was standing still and that we were actually rotating). They kept the rest of the guests entertained with their antics as they travelled around the restaurant for a few laps.
When we got to our bus stop that would take us to the underground, we found that they were hourly buses and we had just missed the last one, leaving a 50 minute wait (and it was already approach 9pm). So, taking a quick glimpse at the map, we decide to put girls on backs and truck to the underground which looks only about a km walk through the park. Unfortunately, my map sense failed on me and we trucked for about 2kms in the wrong direction. So, after firing up the trusty travel-mate (I will never live that one down) and trucking back the 2kms plus 1km, we got to the underground ironically just at the bus pulled in that would have picked us up. We eventually made it back to the hotel close to 10pm (you can read about that little excursion in Colin's previous blog).

Thursday

Thursday morning, we went to see the Lipizzaner horses exercising and practicing for their next performance, which was only on Sunday. The girls were thoroughly entertained by the notion of dancing horses and left the arena prancing and dancing about. The horses are stabled and trained at the original palace so it was incredible to watch them in the authentic environment. When we arrived at the Lipizzaner horses, we had no idea that we were in the original Hofburg Palace, we only discovered it on wandering around after the show. The picture below is the entrance to the palace:

(The Bee all excited about seeing the horsies, below)
After leaving the Lipizzaners, we had no real plan as to where to go. We had decided to just walk around the old part of the city and see what takes our fancy. We were totally unprepared for what we had just walked into. On entering the Lipizzaner arena, we had no idea that we were walking into the palace, and then on exiting, we turned left away from the way that we had come in and wandered straight into the heart of the palace grounds (Hofburg). Our jaws just hit the dirt!
(photos really just don't do it justice - you will have to see it for yourself sometime :))
After gathering ourselves and our jaws I rushed into the local souvenir shop and bought my trusty souvenir guide books and maps. One of the possible items for the day was the National Library, and it was only with my new guide book that I discovered that the Library was in the Hofburg Palace grounds, so we headed off to find it. Although, still in the palace grounds, we had to walk out the main entrance and down a few blocks before we found it. The Vienna National Library houses an astonishing collection of books dating back to 1500. But apart from the books, the building is indescribably. If this was all we came to see, the trip would have been worth it a thousand times! Also, these books are all available to be read.
Amber and Sarah amused themselves in this most amazing setting by trying to read the souvenir guides and commented upon asked "yes, it's nice". They lasted a little while and then the calls for lunch time became very persistent. Again, with not much idea of where we were heading, we just wandered about the streets again and came upon the main shopping street of Vienna. Trying to find some authentic cuisine that didn't look too larney and expensive, we eventually settled for a pizzeria in an upstairs building that was warm and very inviting, with a view out onto the lane.
After finishing our late lunch (around 4pm), we continued to meander down the boulevard and watched some breakdancers and then found our way to the giant ferris wheel at the Vienna Prater (Theme Park) that we had seen from the Danube Tower. It is an antique ferris wheel built in the 1800's and although it isn't quite the London Eye, it gave us beautiful views of the city.
From the Ferris Wheel, we could see that we were in a giant carnival area and wandered around the park with boarded up rides and games booths (due to only open in Mid March for the Summer season), a few amusements were open, such as bumper cars and a spinning ride, but the real winner was that we found an arena giving horse rides. And since the theme of the day had been largely horsie, the girls were very excited to actually be able to ride a real live one - and on their own at that (with the aid of straps). There was tin-can carnival music playing with the ring master in the middle cheering the horses on with the sound of a cracking whip and lots of clicking sounds. They had a total blast and it was definitely their highlight of Vienna.

Friday

Friday, we went to Schönbrunn Palace (the Emperor's Summer Palace). We took the tour through the various rooms feeling totally in awe of the history and unfathomable magnitude of lavishness. Our lunch of biscuits on the garden bench felt very out of place :).

In the back garden, along with a maze, a zoo, a cinema, a castle just for carriages, a theatre .... (just to name a few things), the castle also has it's own dining hall at the top of the hill - called the "Gloriette". It is now a cafe where we had a very welcome coffee and apfelstudel. The picture below is looking up to the Gloriette from in front of the castle.
And from halfway to to the Gloriette - the picture back to the castle.
We even managed to persuade the girls to walk with us up the hill to see the "Gloriette". Actually - the reverse psychology worked here.... me telling them that we can't go there ... them begging and pleading to go ... us making them promise not to say that they are tired and only then can we go.... As you can see from this pic, Sarah is putting on a very brave face - and we are only half way up the hill.
Friday evening supper was at a local traditional Viennese restaurant, run by an American (go-figure). He was really daft and very much larger than life. You should have heard him speak German - quite comical!

Saturday

Another Castle, the Belvedere, which is now a National Gallery of 17th - 19th Century art.

Again, stuff the art, the palace was breathtaking! The first room we walked into was too much for me to handle - I had to spring into a spontaneous Viennese Waltz - pity my partner had to be my hat tho.
And this is just the ceiling!

Upstairs greeted us with similar scenes of obtuse grandeur
Even Amber was impressed.

Lunch was the customary biscuits on a bench in the back garden as it started to rain.
At least we had a breathtaking view
In the afternoon, we took the girls to the children's museum, which turned out to have a clay workshop just starting, so they joined in to make castles and flowers in the huge mountain of clay.

We then rushed (actually, we ran through the rain) to catch the Butterfly house with just 30 minutes before they closed. It was beautiful. You walk into an atrium that is tropical and humid, surrounded by exotic butterflies fluttering past.

For supper, we ended up again at an Italian restaurant (strange how that keeps happening) and managed to have a somewhat reasonable early night.

Sunday

Sunday morning, with only an hour to spare before having to head off to our train, was spent en-route to the Carriage Museum. The girls spotted the park and we gave in our desire to see the carriages for their hour of fun. There was a brilliant obstacle courses and play areas for the kids.

Vienna is one of those places that we have marked off as a "must return here" kind of place and we will definitely be back in the Summer. This was an incredible journey!

(Link to our web album)