Day 19 Vienna, Austria. A Day to Explore

Joan's View

 Schonbrunn entrance, where all of the royal carriages arrive

The rear of Schonbrunn from up on the hill.

We got up early so that we had time to figure out the transit system here in Vienna. We needed to be on time for our tour at Schonbrunn Palace or we would loose our tickets. Tony navigated us to the U-bahn station, and we bought our 2 day tickets to ride the Vienna transit. We boarded the subway along with morning commuters and found Schonbrunn. I expected we would get there and wait, but Tony charmed the ticket lady into an early entrance, and she gave it to us. The palace was huge and ornate. We only saw a small amount of the 1,441 room estate. It was the summer home of the Hapsbergs, the former rulers of Austria. Marie Antoinette was a Hapsberg until she was married off to a French ruler for political reasons.




After doing the inside tour, (no pictures allowed), we explored the even bigger gardens. They were beautiful, and they seemed to have no end. While climbing this big hill to see the other end of the garden (Yes, Dane, we climb even on foot ⛰), geek mode kicked in, and Tony had to stop to get pictures of their robotic mowers so that he can research them more. We finished exploring all of the pretty garden views,

Oops. Dead end.

The celebration picture

 

Mower research

then went to have some fun in the maze and labyrinth areas. It took us a while to find the center of the maze which was underneath a giant sycamore tree. We took a celebration picture before attempting the exit. At that point, Tony, you can see in the picture, opted for the short path out instead. We played some more and decided to head back to the room for lunch, and more importantly, a nap.

After recharging, we went to St. Stephen, the biggest church in Vienna. The place was packed with crowds. In fact, most of the city is packed with crowds, population 1.9 million. Pretty neat though that we got to pray with the exposition of the host, and went to confession. The priest obviously spoke English or that could have been a real experience.

We left there and happened upon the famous Vienna Opera House. Since we were able to get a tour relatively quickly, we did a guided tour and learned a little more about the world of opera, especially in one of the greatest opera cities, Vienna.

Waiting for the Vienna Opera tour

From there, we tried to do a Rick Steves walking tour made for a city ring bus. Well, that kind of went south, literally. The bus started out matching the audio tour and then nothing matched. We got off when we arrived somewhat south of the city at what looked like the long distance train station. It was time to retreat, so Tony got out his phone to lead us to the nearest U-bahn station, but we may try that audio tour again tomorrow. We think we know at least which bus to take now. Haha.

We came back to a restaurant near our room for some yummy Greek food, then to the nearest grocery store, Spar, for a few more groceries.
 

The magnificent marble entrance of the Vienna Opera House

Tony's Extras

I would include extra pictures but the WiFi here just isn't lettting me. We saw some amazing things today, and even I couldn't sneak in a photo of those places. The pictures I wanted to share with you are of the Opera house and St. Stephens Cathdrel. It was nice to see an elaborate place for the opera. They have an opera show every night with big name people. It is pretty expense to see a show there, over $220. 

One thing that was interesting about St. Stephen's was the confession for me. When I walked in, the Preist was standing there and you had the choice to go behind the screen or just face to face. If you chose face to face, as I did, the priest came out and sat on the other side of the table as in a general conversation. It provided a pretty neat conversation. Starting to learn my way around Vienna, but I have to admit I was very frustrated at first. Tomorrow we plan to go to Mass in St. Stephen's cathedrel at 7:00pm in the catacombs. They have Mass in the cathedrel at 5:00pm with the Bishop in German, but they say it will last over 2 hours. I am petitioning to Joan to go to the English Mass.