Needed a bigger Palace....

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Monday 18^thMay. Spent the day in Vienna. I explored some of the many wonderful parks, visited the Eurovision Village, and the highlight was visiting the Schönbrunn Palace.

In the morning I had to do a bit of shopping, and also had discovered that there was a branch of the pastry shop I had looked for yesterday just ten minutes down the road. I found it, and despite the fact that the lady in the shop spoke only German, which I don’t, I managed to come away with a few fabulous gluten-free Viennese pastries to eat over the next couple of days.

Vienna really has a lot of parks and green spaces and as I walked around the city I enjoyed a number of them. I went in search of a model railway shop (which I did find), but it was a long walk from the railway station where I had alighted. Items in the shop were overpriced and I didn’t buy anything. I wanted to find a nearer station, and found both Google and Apple Maps useless as I didn’t know which station I wanted, and neither seemed able to find ‘nearest metro’ or anything. I ended up just getting on a tram (didn’t know where it was going!) and got off when a huge crowd did, then followed them to the metro!

After lunch I decided to head to the Schönbrunn Palace, which you can get to by metro too, it’s only about 8 stops from the city. It was the Imperial summer place, though why they wanted a second palace only about 10-15 km from the city ‘winter’ palace is a good question – it’s not like its up in the hills or mountains. What an extraordinary place – the grounds are gigantic and impressive, as are the palace complex and the gardens. Something very noticeable here is that all the gardens, palaces and grounds are open to the people. There may be a cost to enter museums, tour palaces, etc, but at Schönnbrun, for example, full access to all the grounds and gardens is free, the gates are open for everyone to visit – very democratic.

I returned to the city and walked around to see some more of the historic public buildings, including more of the Hofburg Palace complex, the Albertina Museum, Opera House and State Theatre. Sunday night the Eurovision Village was restricted entry, for the Opening Ceremony, but Monday it was open so I visited for a look. Some big screens in front of the Rathaus, screening Eurovision’s greatest hits from over the decades, lots of food stalls, and people swarming around. Official souvenirs were available. I had dinner at a nearby French crèperie. The waiter spoke both French and English as well as German!

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Photos

St Stephan's Cathedral
Unphotographable without a mighty wide-angle lens, which I lack!

Gluten-free Vienna
Yum