Spanish Riding School

Blessed with the weather again, Karina rose early for breakfast while I slept in a bit. The plan today was for me to rest my foot this morning, have the leftover pizza for lunch, and then meet Karina in the city before the tour of the Spanish Riding School at 2pm.

The internet wasn't really working properly this morning, so I was really bored again, flicking between TV channels every 2 mins and trying the @#$% internet again. In the end I went back to bed for about 45 mins until it was time for a shower, lunch and leave.

A short tram trip and a short walk and I met Karina at the Mozart monument (where else?) in one of the parks on the Ringstrasse. We walked though to the Spanish Riding School just in time for the tour.

The tour included the stables (where you could meet all the horses), the tack room, the riding hall and the summer riding enclosure. Whilst I found it very interesting to see behind the scenes, it has been one of Karina's childhood dreams to visit the SRS and she was as excited as you'd expect (especially saying hello to the horses)! They only accept on average 2 students every 3 years, so it's quite an exclusive school, and students take from 8-10 years (sometimes more) to become fully accredited "riders" in the school. Apparently they also prefer students with very little or no riding experience (no bad habits to break) so I've notified Karina that I'll be applying after we get home (I'll let her groom my horses occasionally).

After the tour we sat in Stephanplatz for a few hours, Karina going for the occasional walk, while I sat and read the book she bought from the palace tour she did this morning. It looks absolutely amazing, I wish I could have seen it for myself. :(

We decided to have an early dinner - we had an Austrian meal at a pub/restaurant close by. After pretzels were served on a little rack with our beers (we found out later they weren't free) we shared a Weiner Schnitzel (of course) and some more Austrian sausages served with sauerkraut, potato wedges and a potato salad. I started with an Edelweizz (wheat?) beer and Karina had the local Steigel, which I ordered next.

Back to the apartment and some more KOQ before a relatively early night. The &^!%@$ internet is playing up again...

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