This is what we saw. Hard to capture in a picture, but the rolling hills became rock peaks with changing trees: breathtaking.
Unfortunately, this is also what we saw quite a bit of as you actually end up going THROUGH the mountains, rather than winding over and around them.
After about 5 hours, we made it to Vienna! We stayed at the Marriott, across from Stadtpark, in the centre of the Old Town which was great because all the historic sites were within walking distance.
Karntner Strasse - the main shopping street. The shopping looked great (through the windows!), and I saw quite a few stores that I've never seen before, along with the same favourites you see everywhere. Ducked into a shoe store at one point and I very much regret not buying some new boots while there! Beautiful leather, knee length boots of every variety! Some things you just can't do with kids though!
Graben street - more shopping and beautiful architecture!
Averie in Stephansplatz - so cute scooting along, in and out of the crowds!
Stephansdom cathedral or Steffl as the locals call it - it dominates the city centre and has a gothic, almost 'skeletal' architecture. The patterned roof is incredible (apparently a quarter million yellow, blue and green glazed tiles)! Amazing what restoration does to the look of it... the front facade has already restored (and cleaned), whereas the sides are still covered in a couple hundred years of grime and makes it look so much more eerie... It is also said, that Beethoven realized the final loss of his hearing when he could no longer hear the bells of Steffl.
Running short of energy on the last leg of the trip, we decided a carriage ride would be a great way to see the main part of Old Town! The first horse drawn carriage ride any of us has been on... Averie was beside herself!
One of the fourteen addresses that Mozart lived in while living in Vienna
After the carriage ride we were starving and ready for some local cuisine! We found a locals hangout called Cafe Korb (which was featured in our tourist book) and settle in for some goulash and goulash soup! Mmmm, it was delicious!
Followed by Apfelstrudel for dessert with coffees.
A note on coffee houses in Austria: Austria is credited in popular legend with introducing coffee to Europe after bags of coffee beans were left behind by the retreating Turkish army after the Battle of Vienna in 1683.
The interiors of a traditional café consist of typically round tables and chairs from bended wood, hat stands of the same type, waiters in black dinner jackets, newspapers in wood reading holders and smoke from cigarettes and cigars. Cafe Korb fit the description perfectly.
Coffee is almost always served on a little, oval silver plate and with a glass of still water, sometimes accompanied by a small piece of chocolate. There are also many variations of coffee, most beginning with a Mokka (the Austrian equivalent of espresso but extracted slower) and then various amounts of milk, foam, liquor and most often whipped cream. Being coffee lovers as we both are, it was heaven!
Took us a little while to figure this one out! The kids were fascinated!
Pestsaule (plague column) - a monument to the last time the black plague epidemic hit Vienna in 1679 and its final abolishment.
Michealerplatz ;)
Hofburg - the home of the Habsburg dynasty which ruled Austria for six centuries. This is only the front facade with the main courtyard behind and concsists of 18 wings, 19 courtyards and 2600 rooms. The resisdence has been transformed to into several different museums now including the Sisi Museum which portrays Vienna's beloved, tragic empress Sisi. Also inside in the Spanische Reitschule (Spanish Riding School) where beautiful Lipizzaner stallions dance and twirl to Viennese waltz music. We tried to get tickets to one of the shows but the kids had to be absolutely quiet and remain seated on our laps for the entire show... unfortunately, we just weren't brave enough at the end of the trip to try this...
Roman ruins found under Hofburg in Michaelerplatz.
Hoher Markt
Carter found something that caught his eye...
A little bicycle for his favourite friend, little Fuzzy
Roasting chestnuts everywhere on the streets
the kids' first taste... hooked! They were delicious!
Carter perusing in an antique market :)
Stadtpark, with a monument to Johann Strauss.
The next day, we decided to take the U-bahn to the outer part of the city to Schonbrunn Palace. Situated within the palace grounds is Vienna's zoo, which was our main goal for the day. The kids has put up with a lot of city walking and needed something more their interests.
Schonbrunn palace, the front courtyard. Now a Unesco World Heritage Site, it was originally built as a hunting lodge by Maximillian II in 1569 and expanded to its current state by Empress Maria Theresa. We were told it is to the Viennese, what Versailles is to the French.
The garden was styled after the perfectly manicured French gardens of the times. The hedges on the left side of the photo are at lease 40' tall and perfectly flat along the top.
The changing leaves were very pretty.
Unfortunately, they had just dug up all the beautiful flowers for the season... so this is what we saw
This is what it usually looks like
We took our turn guarding the palace.
The Palaces Irrgarten ("crazy garden") - Amid the palace grounds was an eccentric kids' playground full of unusual climbing frames, wacky mirrors and sandpits as well as two large hedge mazes. This bird climbing frame was too hard to resist, so Mike and the kids had a go at it! Once you sit in the seat you pull on the head to make the wings flap up and down.
Carter enjoying watching Mike climb up into the strange bird structure
Vienna zoo - the oldest zoo in the world dating from 1752
Giant Panda bears!
We enjoyed watching this guy eat...
All in all, it was pretty much like every other zoo, except that the buildings were Baroque, dating back to the 1700's, and they were selling giant pretzels instead of ice cream at the stands; no complaints there! The pretzels made a great portable lunch while we walked around!
I think in the end, maybe we should have put Vienna first and ended in Munich so that we had more energy to see and experience everything in Vienna. We had a great time, but really only skimmed the surface. Vienna is such a great city with so much history, art, culture, music, shopping and great food, that we'd definitely like to come back to some day.
Jenn
