Day 17–Schonbrunn and the best of Wein (Vienna)

We started the day lazily, allowing everyone to rest and rejuvenate.  Showers, breakfast, and getting ready for the day.  We discussed a plan of attack for the day.  I convinced the troupes that it was worth the U-bahn trip and half a day to see Schloss Schönbrunn, so we settled on that for half the day, and some time in the afternoon to see something else.

After a short U-bahn ride and a 10 minute walk, we were at  Schönbrunn, the summer residence of the Habsburgs.  Judging from the looks of awe I saw, I believe I was correct in saying that we should go see it.  We settle package that included an audio tour of the palace apartments, the maze, and the Gloriette.

The palace apartment tour was pretty good, more interesting the many that I have been on.  Probably doesn’t hurt that there are many beautiful, rich, and ornate things to see, along with all of the interesting information about the Habsburgs.  Worth doing, even though the kids got kind of bored with it, except for the occasional oooh and ahh when we would go into some particularly ornate room.

Next up was a stroll through the palace gardens on way to the Gloriette at the far side of the property.  We enjoyed playing in one of the smaller side gardens before we hit the main open area behind Schönbrunn.  Everyone was stunned by the beauty of the place as we came out of the garden and could see the entire area behind the palace.  As you can imagine we took many photos of the place, which I will only share a few of the better ones here.

Once we finished with the garden area, we started the short hike up to the Gloriette.  While it was cooler than Budapest had been (high 80’s), it was still quite warm climbing up the hill in the sun.  The kids were starting to complain a little. 

Soon we arrived at the top of the hill and were greeted by yet another amazing view of Schonbrunn and Wien.  Our tickets allowed us to go to the top of the Gloriette, which was icing on the visual cake.  More pictures.

The walk back down was much more pleasant, partitally because it was easier, and partially because the kids had something to look forward to, the maze was next.

Before starting the maze we took a quick break and let the kids play at a cool little playground right next to the entrance to the maze.  There were several neat sets of play equipment, including one climb on thing that looking like a bird that you could even flap its wings.

Refreshed, into the maze we went.  Noah was very excited and lead us most of the way.  As we entered, most of us were just laid back, letting Noah have his fun.  However, after getting into several turn, backtrack, and such, we realized how well the maze worked. Simply having the hedge high enough to block your view was disorienting and “tunneled” enough to make to challenging to find your way.  It took us a good 15 minutes with efforts by most of the group at some point or other to get through the maze.  Noah was pretty proud. 

After finishing the maze, we took a little time to doing the labryinth, which was like a mini-maze with some obsticals.  There were stepping stones, Indiana Jones-style, with some of the booby trapped to shoot water at you when you stepped on them. There were several other interesting activities, like a mirror maze.
By this time, we had already spend an hour longer at Schonbrunn that we intended.  Probably a good sign for how much folks liked it.  However, there was more things to do and see, so back to the apartment to regroup.

Once there, the band of 7 parted ways for a few hours.  Jeanne went to some of the museums in the musem blocks.  Sara and I had a task to do, pack up some stuff and send it back home to lighten our load some.  And only 30 minutes to find and get to a post office.

Fortunately there was a post office less than 10 minutes from our apartment.  After finding a box in their store, we approached one of the counters.  A very nice, young clerk named Manuel helped us, including helping pack the box and work through all the shipping paperwork.  Since we are not expecting any really cold weather the rest of the trip, we shipped back some of the warming layers and other things we didn’t need (like the driving GPS system).  The box was 21 pounds!  It cost us $50 to send it slow route to the US, but want a relief it will be to have 21 less pounds to carry around.

After completing that errand, we picked up the kids and teens at the apartment and spend the rest of the afternoon walking around the pedestrian streets near Stephanplatz.  We walked along the extensive pedestrian streets filled with top-end shops, souvenir stores, and sidewalk cafes.  After meandering for a while, we ended up at the Wein Stadtsoper (state opera house), yet another beautiful building.  We went inside but could only go to the main stair case as there was a performance that evening.  It is pretty amazing that the opening performance for this opera house was Mozart performing Don Giovanni.

Time to head back to the apartment to rendezvous with Jeanne for dinner.  The dance of the choosing-the-dinner-location was performed again, resulting in a agreement to try out a brewpub followed by an after dinner walk around the ring.

A short walk later want we arrived at this hopping brewpub named 1516 Brew House.  The significance of 1516 is a tribute to the year when personal brewing of beer became legal in Vienna.  We were in heaven.  Microbrew, pub food, and laid back atmosphere was what we all needed.  Food was very good for the brewpub fair, having both American variations and some more traditional Viennese dishes.  I would guess that either an American owned the place, or the owner had some significant ties to America.  The only down side was we where in the upstairs, inside seating, which was pretty warm because of the heat. 

After getting out fill, we embarked on a walk around the ring, which is a street the circles part of Vienna and lined with many famous places.  It was about a half mile to get to the Hofburg palace, the main living establishment of the Habsburgs.  Since night had set, we could see the palace beautifully lit and stopped to take pictures and enjoy the cooler air that had settled in the city.  Across several parks we could see the Rathaus, but decided that was further than we cared to walk this evening, and headed back through more pedestrian walking areas to our apartment.

As we were approaching out apartment, with packing and rest on our minds, we hear some music and revelry in the apartment building across the street from ours.  We didn’t think much about it at the time.  We finished packing and put the kids to bed.  The whole time the revelry continued, which has now increased in volume some and can be heard through our open windows.  OK, it is now 11, guessing this should be done soon on a Wednesday night.  Around midnight it is time for Sara and I to turn in, except we are having a hard time falling a sleep to the sound of partying.  Fortunately, we did manage to fall asleep after not too long.  But wait, our party-going friends weren’t quite done.  Around 3AM we were awoken by a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday”.  Fortunately that was followed shortly by a bunch of people noisily talking in the streets on their way home.  FINALLY.