45th Day: Vienna

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In the morning there was an optional tour to go to the Schonnbrunn Palace, mum didn't go but I did. We were the first group in again! Luigi always drags us out of bed early so we can be the first ones at these places and it is definitely worth it.

We had a local guide again, the first male guide, his name was Gerard. He told us how the Schonbrunn is now a UNESCO Cultural Heritage Site. When it was built the architects wanted to copy or recreate the look of Versailles and it is obviously similar but not as good. The palace was built about 350 years ago. It was very ornate and it had been kept the same since Maria Theresa's time as a tribute to her. Maria Theresa was the only female ruler in the Habsburg dynasty (I'm pretty sure) she had 16 children, and one of them was Marie Antoinette. After walking through the palace we saw the gardens.

After Schonbrunn we met up with everyone else and had a Vienna orientation tour. I slept for a lot of it but I did learn this.

- 30% of Vienna was bombed during WW2.
- Austria is the closest Western country to the East. Having borders with the Czech Republic, Hungary and other eastern countries. Because of this during the cold war, Vienna was a bit of a scary place to live.
- Lots of the old palaces are now museums.

After the orientation tour the optional tour continued and we were taken to the Royal Pantheon where most of the Habsburgs are buried.

After the tour we were given a few hours free time to wander around Vienna's city centre but unfortunately the weather was pretty lousy, rainy and cold, so we didn't stay too long so instead of waiting for the coach we caught the subway to get back to the hotel.

We bummed around in the hotel for a while and then ventured out to have a late lunch/early tea. We wanted to go to the same Japanese restaurant as the night before so we caught the train there but when we got there we found out that it didn't open till 6 and it was only 4! We had two hours to kill so we went into the city centre, considered going to a Picasso & Mozart exhibition but entry fee was a bit pricey, bought stamps, got a drink and before we knew it two hours was up so we headed back to the restaurant. The dinner was delicious once again.

Caught the train back to the hotel, went on the net for a while and then off to bed.

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