Vienna

Friday 16th November 2018

We arrived very late last night into Vienna and had to catch an Uber into our Airbnb as the trains wernt’t operating. We had a pretty slow morning knowing that we had three days in Vienna so there was time to relax and enjoy the time here. We had to sort a few life admin things during the morning and had to head to the grocery store to buy some breakfast. We finally made a plan to head out to Schönbrunn Palace which was a wee way away from us and we would need to take the tube or rather the U bahn to get there! Leaving the warmth of the apartment and heading out into the cool sunny air we walked about 8 minutes to the closest U bahn station which was Nestroyplatz. We decided to buy the 24 hour public transport pass as by the time we purchased tickets out to the palace and back into town it would be only slightly more to have multiple rides throughout the day. The underground was very clean and looked very much like the trains in other places we had been such as Munich. Making one connection to another line was a little confusing since all the signs are in German but we made it to the station closest to the Schönbrunn Palace. We knew it was free to walk around the gardens and with it being such a beautiful day we thought that would be the best plan. We kinda have this attitude that when you have seen one Palace in Europe you have seen them all. Perhaps we are missing out but it’s hard to tell! So a bit of history regarding this Palace. At the end of the 17th century Emperor Leopold I commissioned Baroque architect Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach who had received training in Rome to design an imperial hunting lodge for his son Crown Prince Joseph (who later became Emperor Joseph I). Emperor Joseph I married Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg in Vienna but he later died of smallpox without producing an heir to the throne (their only son died before his first birthday) leaving Josephs brother Charles VI to become emperor and inherited Schönbrunn Palace. He eventually gifted this to Maria Theresa who later went on to become the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Transylvania, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, the Austrian Netherlands and Parma. By marriage she also was Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Holy Roman Empress. Do you think she ever had time for herself?! How can you even be sovereign for that many countries and she reigned for 40 years! Believe it or not she gave birth to 16 children and 13 of those survived infancy including the youngest daughter and a name most of us are familiar with - Marie Antoinette who become Queen of France. I still find it mind blowing how all these imperial families married amongst themselves and marrying of a child was more for political reasons like a big social climbing game as opposed to making sure they are committed and love each other. We wandered around the grounds admiring the giant facade of the palace. Unfortunately the gardens has been all pulled out for the impending winter but we could imagine how stunning it would be during the spring and summer. The palace had a hill up behind it which we climbed up past an incredible water feature looking back over the ground and palace. The hill went so high up that we could see not only the entire palace but the city of Vienna emerging behind it. Within this palace ground is also the Schönbrunn Zoo which is the oldest continuously operating zoo in the world and has been around since 1752 when it was developed as an imperial menagerie (a collection of captive, usually exotic animals for the royal family). We didn’t go into the zoo ourselves but wandered around the outside of it admiring the view of the city down below peeking through the trees. I had found a brochures on strudel making in the Airbnb and was very keen on going to see how the official Austrian strudel is made. I knew it would be covered in butter so there was no way I was going to be able to try it but I felt certain that I could make it dairy free at home. On the grounds of the palace there is Cafe-Restaurant Residenz Schönbrunn and below it is the Strudelshow! Now I had seen some Airbnb experiences for this a few months back but we weren’t in a position to book anything at the time but i’m sure that would be a lot more hands on than what we were about to see. It cost €6 (£5.40/$10 nzd) per person entry and that was a small muffin cup sized piece of strudel and a seat to watch the show which happen every hour. We were the first ones there for the 4pm final show of the day so we got to choose some seats right up the front. It was in a brick basement with a large work shop set up. Around the outside was bits and bobs they were selling like tea towels with the strudel recipes on (there were none in english or I would have been keen!), strudel filling and recipe books (also none in english). Lew tucked into his strudel pretty quick and initially I could see no butter or anything out on the bench so I thought perhaps there wasn’t any dairy products in the strudel after all. But as I begun reading the back of the strudel filling and the recipe there was of course butter that needed to be added. At 4pm a lady came out and begun the show speaking in both German and English with an incredibly strong accent that we had to concentrate very had when she switched between the two languages. She told us a bit about the strudel with the first recipes dating back to 1696 and this recipe can even be found in the Viennese Public Library. The apple strudel waa Maria Theresia’s favourite and was often served to her and her guest but today it is considered a national food of Austria. The women running the show had all the dough pre-made but pointed out all the ingredients laid out in front of her that was needed to make the strudel. They soak the raisins in rum and use breadcrumbs fried in butter to add to the taste of the thin pastry and sour apples mixed with brown sugar, lemon, cinnamon and nuts which is a heavenly mixture. We decided it was an absolute art as we watched out tutor roll out the pastry and then proceed to walk around the room stretching it out around her elbows without a simple hole forming. It needs to be so thin and elastic that you can read something through it! By this time after I had heard Lew rave about his small piece of strudel there was no way I wasn’t trying this small piece in front of me, the symptoms would be worth it for this! He was right to - absolutely incredible with the taste of the spices, apples and sweet flaky pastry. We watched as the strudel dough has become ready and she flattened it out across a board with her strudel cloth underneath. She also had the filling pre-made and begun to add this onto the dough into a large log. This is where she said we would discovered why the strudel cloth (made of cotton) was required as she pulled the first layer of the dough over the filling but then pulled the cloth out from underneath the rest of it so it quickly rolled itself up into a log. It literally just stayed on the end of the board narrowly ending up on the floor - I would have happily volunteered to eat it still! Now she begun to brush the strudel very heavily with melted butter and I gulped a little knowing it had that much butter on it! Too late now! She posed a question to the entire room as to how she was going to get the strudel onto the baking tray, I had been wondering that myself and figured she would use the strudel cloth again. I called that out and before I knew what was happening I was being dragged up to help her and being given an apron and a hat! She made me hold on to the end of the strudel cloth and we both walked it over to the tray before simultaneously rolling it off! She then made me lather MORE butter on top of the log before I was relieved of my duties! She gave me a certificate stating I was now a master baker of strudel but I insisted she did all the hard work which was 100% true. I do hope to make a recipe at home myself at some point as i’m sure we have some rum floating around. Finishing up with the show we were given a recipe for us to try at home and we emerged out of the building into darkness. Having had a very late start we didn’t think it was time to head back home and instead made our way into town to the main square of Stephansplatz. We emerged from the underground and were instantly awestruck by the impressive St Stephen's Cathedral right in front of us as well as a Christmas market!! I was over the moon with how well this had worked out since I had no idea there was a market here. At this point Lew got a call from his good friend John who we are seeing in a months time at his wedding in Texas. They chatted for awhile whilst I looked in the small wooden huts surrounded by Xmas lights. We took a few photos of the cathedral with its impressive Romanesque and Gothic features including the most stunning tiled roof I have seen on a cathedral so far! The cathedral was built on the ruins of two earlier churches that was first consecrated in 1147 and is the most important religious building in Vienna. Now everyone had said to me that we must drink the glühwein which is a mixture of red wine, cinnamon sticks, sugar, oranges and cloves and there was a stall selling both that and punch as we entered the market. With Lew still on the phone to John I decided to get one glühwein and one punch to try. I had read in a few blogs already that these hot drinks are served in xmas themed mugs that you have to pay a €4 (£3.60/$6.70 nzd) deposit for. Now you can choose to return them to get your money back or you can keep them if you wish. Some people collect them as they change every year and each market around the town has their own mug design. I love the idea of using these instead of plastic or polystyrene cups which are single use. Whilst sipping wine and punch we made out way down the market glancing at each stall selling all sorts of handmade goodies such as small tea light candles, chocolate shaped tools, cute xmas decorations, clothing, dried fruit/nuts, salamis and chutneys and my most favourite of all the hand decorated paper mache balls! I fell in love with a small pink and blue flowered one that wasn’t at all xmas themed but was stunning all the same and only €3 (£2.70/$5 nzd). We were making our way back up the market which wound around the side of the cathedral but we hadn’t had dinner yet and walked past a pretzel store and Lew remembered we had brought one in the supermarket in the morning that was in my backpack we could munch on! By this stage it was a little embarrassing how much 250mls of wine could affect us both ad we ended up wandering the streets a little drunk trying to find a supermarket. Thankfully we also had some potato chips to munch on during the walk! The supermarket was in a mall which was wonderful as it also had a free toilet - something in Europe which is hard to find! We were very keen on trying out the schnitzel and manage to buy some beef to cook at home as well as some pumpkin and potatoes plus some fresh raspberries and ice cream for dessert. We headed home on the U bahn to our warm snuggly apartment where we cooked dinner and painstakingly worked out how we were getting to Egypt because every option seemed to be soooo expensive. Just before midnight we made the decision we would just pay for direct flights and be done with it! We would thank ourselves when the time comes around!

Gluhwein and pretzels at Stephansplatz Xmas Market

Xmas market set up outside Schönbrunn Palace

Saturday 17th November

Last night I had tried to buy some tickets to the Spanish Riding School performance but without any luck the women on the phone recommended we show up at 10am at the latest to try and get in with the show beginning at 10.30am. We managed to get downtown just after 10am and found the queue to buy tickets. Thankfully it wasn’t sold out and we were able to buy standing tickets for £25 ($41 nzd) and made our way straight to the door to go in with it being 10.30am. Note that you arnt actually allowed to take photos so most of them are from the internet! We found a wee pen we were supposed to stand in and got ourselves the best view we thought possible before sitting down on the step behind us whilst we could since it was a 90 minute show and our tickets were standing only! We hadn’t really done our research but was rather just suggested by a friend that this was a good thing to go to and now we sat down googling the history of the entire thing. The Spanish Riding School in Vienna is the only institution in the world which has been practicing for more than 450 years. It continues to practice in traditional renaissance ways of the Haute Ecole which is considered one of UNESCO’s list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity. The riding school only has one type of horse and that is the famous Lipizzaner stallion that is bred by one single stud farm located in the village of Piber. These horses can all be traced back to 8 original stallions that continue to extend the blood line even today. Now these horses are incredibly muscular and watching them enter into the stadium were pretty impressive even though these first ones we saw were the up and coming talent and still babies at around 5 years of age. These younger horses were a mixture of whites and greys and the horses are actually are born black and become lighter each year and are usually white by the time they reach 6-10 years of age. These younger horses were a little more boisterous and didn’t want to stay in lines and were a bit skittish when the crowd began to clap. Believe it or not the riders of these horses are actually incredibly dedicated as well and training at the Spanish Riding School means a lifelong education that’s always subject to the needs to the horses. Training as a rider takes 8-10 years and the handed down oral tradition of classic equestrian still applies today. After the young horses were finished they brought out the top guns and explained to us that the horses wear a different shade of cloth under the saddles depending on whether they are doing work on the ground or whether they are airs above the ground. So red was for when they were performing turns and manoeuvres and green was for the airs above the ground which included the courbette which is when the horse balances on its hind legs and hops. There was also the capriole which is when the stallion leaps into the air and tucks its forelegs underneath and kicks out its hind legs mid air. We also got to see them perform the levade which is when the horse raises its front legs up to standing at 30 degree and they were all very very skills horses. The riders took them aside afterwards whispering encouragement and patting them on the head. We were even told that the traditional uniform that they wear has a small pocket for sugar cubes so maybe if they were well enough behaved they got one of those! The final thing we watched was called the ballet of the white stallions which had a group of 8 or so horses and riders that showed immense concentration and the horses moved around the arena in perfect timing. Within the beautiful baroque riding hall from 1729, the riders and their historic uniforms and the complete trust between the rider and stallion who communicate only with body language was an incredible form of art we were lucky to see. With all this hard work we were pleased to know that the horses are well looked after and spend their summers as well as two or three additional six week breaks enjoying normal horse life out in the countryside. Once the show was over we all emerged outside into the bright sunshine and we wandered across the road to the stables. It was immaculate and even had a big roof that comes across in the winter to keep the snow out. The horses each had their own wee stable with their heads poking out curiously looking at the crowds of people admiring them. We plugged the Naschmarkt into our phones and headed in that direction as our next point of call. This is Vienna most popular market and is located on the side of the Wien River and stretches for 1.5km. It has been around since the 16th century where mainly milk bottles were sold but it transitioned into what it is now with fresh fruit/veggies, herbs, cheeses, baked goods, meats and seafoods! There are also restaurants and a flea market which we wandered through. Lew was starving at this point and I had saved one hot dog stand into my phone which was a 22 minute train ride away! We decided to do it anyways and make the most of the final hours of our 24 hour train pass. Getting out of the station and walking about 5 minutes to the hot dog stand called Leo’s it was literally just a bright turquoise small hut on the side of the road! We ordered just a plain hot dog and instead of the guy fiddling around with trying to cut the bun apart they just cut the top off and then shoved it through a metal spike to make a perfect hot dog shaped hole!! We were rather starving at this point and ate our hot dog whilst we made our way to a xmas market at the Vienna University campus. We picked up a hot chocolate at a cafe close so that we were able to use their toilets before making our way into the university. Literally in the heart of the campus was a wooden village set up with log fires and barrels of mulled wine you could ladle out into your cup! Yesterday we had seen some hand made potato chips and noticed them again today. We decided to try some as we could see the fresh potatoes being fed into the spiralizer machine behind us before they were fried. Carrying on through the market we came across the bread cut out into a bowl with the soup inside as well as the chimney cakes we had seen in Brugge, Belgium. We wandered around enjoying the atmosphere of people drinking steaming hot cups of mulled wine and punch whilst standing in front of the outdoor log fire. The only thing missing was some snow which is expected to come in a couple of days! Feeling a little frozen solid the next plan was to head back to the apartment to warm up before going to a run before the sun went down. We headed out just after 4pm and it was clear that it was going to begin to get dark very shortly! Lew had planned a 10km run through the woods so we layered up in out merinos and set out. It was bitterly cold and about 1 degrees but as we begun to warm up it was a lot more pleasant. The woods wernt’t as thick as expected thankfully as twilight hit and we ran through the fallen autumn leaves on the ground. The air was fresh and dry and there were many people out walking their dogs with glow in the dark collars on. We had pumpkin soup and bacon for dinner with fresh bread and finished up with dairy free ice cream and fresh raspberries! We headed to bed at a much more reasonable time ready for our final day in the beautiful Austrian city!

Lifes better with a cup of mulled wine in hand

Hot chocolate so we can borrow their toilet..

Pretty relaxed dinner - Pumpkin soup with bacon

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Yes it was that cold when we went running!

Sunday 18th November

We knew it would be a very long day with our flight back to London leaving at 8.45 pm back to London Gatwick so we didn’t rush out into the cold winters day. At 11am we left the house and walked to Praterstern railway station which was surprisingly close to our house and where we were able to leave our luggage for €2 (£1.80/$3.40 nzd) for 24 hours. From here the first stop of the day was the Christmas Market Freyung which was small and nestled next to the catholic church. This market dates back to 1772 making it the oldest Christmas Market in Vienna but also the smallest and more authentic market. They had some beautiful high quality artisan gifts as well as hand made gingerbread and lots of beeswax candles of all shapes and colours. They sold lots of cookie cutters in one shop and I was incredibly keen to fill the kitchen with xmas themed cookie but I refrained myself. Something we didn’t realise is that every stall holder in these markets even have to pass a panel of judges before they can be accepted to have a stall at this market! So they really have to be making something very special to get a spot. On the back of the huts there is a 46 meter long nativity scene painted which was rather adorable. I had two other markets on my list for the morning so the next one was called Adventmarkt Am Hof which was just down the road from Freyung Christmas Market but certainly a bit bigger and was surrounded by beautiful old buildings. The wee wooden huts were all in a row with a lot more varied stalls selling sheeps wood products, lollies, artwork and hand baked goods. There was this giant stall selling fresh sausages and all sorts of meat sandwiches and the smell emerging from it was just unreal. We were very hungry at this point and couldn’t make a decision on what to eat which I dont think was helped by the bone chilling cold we were experiencing. I went with a potato dish with bacon and red onion whilst Lew went for the hot dog in some sort of bread batter but this market definitely had some of the best food options we had come across. I made sure to get two steaming hot cups of gluhwein so we could defrost our hands whilst admiring the atmosphere. There really is a bit difference between NZ and here because in winter we batter down the hatches and get through it. But in Europe they embrace it so much and people are out and about still enjoying it all. Xmas certainly helps that along as we have no big holidays during winter which would encourage such markets. We had managed to book ourselves into a free walking tour at 2.30pm and wanted to get to one last market on my list for the day which was the impressive Wiener Christkindlmarkt at the Rathaus. This is by far the biggest and the most touristy Christmas Market in Vienna and it is situated in front of the Rathaus which is Vienna City Hall but looks surprisingly like a church with its gothic architecture. By this stage the gluhwein from the previous market had kicked in and we were wandering around or rather stumbling through the endless stalls which were a bit more tacky than the previous markets. We did however excitedly purchase a giant pretzel and Lew also came across a pizza in a cone which he was very keen on. We knew the 2 hour walking tour would be outside the entire time and we desperately needed to defrost before we begun that. Our flatmate Conor had only been in Vienna last weekend so he recommended we go to a coffee house called Demel that’s been around since 1888. It was pretty beautiful and sold lots of cakes and tea but took us a long time to get a table. We were very short of time by this point but Lew managed to down a exquisite piece of chocolate cake and I had a berry tea. By the point we had to run to the starting point of the tour which was Helmut Zilk-Platz. Our guide was called Ingrid who is a local Viennese women who works for ‘Welcome Tour Vienna’ which is a free walking tour company but then you just tip at the end what you think the tour was worth to you. We had a nice sized group of about 15 people from all over the world including Mexico, India, UK and Singapore. No Aussies for once which was strange! She begun by taking us up on the balcony of the Albertina museum so we could speak a little about Vienna and how it came about. So it initially was a Roman city alongside the Danube River which is still here today and then turned into a small medieval town surrounded by a wall to keep it safe. The wall was removed in 1850 as they wanted the city which was considered to be in the middle of Europe expand past the 500,000 people currently living there. Today there is 1.9 million people living in the city of Vienna which is actually less than before the wars since so many people were killed. The area we were currently in based around the ring road where wealthy noble people were allowed to build palaces which is why there were so many stunning buildings in the area. One of them being the famous Vienna Opera House out in the distance. The square where we begun the tour was actually significant as during WWII when Austria was part of Germany and there was a building here that was completely destroyed and all the people hiding in the basement died. Ingrid went on to say that every child growing up in Vienna must visit a concentration camp at school to hopefully prevent such a tragic event re-occurring in the world. Vienna’s Royal family was the House of Habsburg and they were among the most influential and distinguished royal family in Europe. I talked a little bit about them after our visit to Schonbrunn Palace which turns out to the the summer house of the family and they used to ride horses there taking them half as day rather than 15 minutes on the underground as it does today! In town is the royal family’s winter house called the Imperial Apartments and it is possible to visit these. Ingrid told us that the Palace is made up of lots of different buildings in a few different styles so its hard to work out that its considered one place. Many of the emperors wanted to leave a mark of their own which is why they built new wings and of course an entire new apartment was needed for Maria Theresa and her 13 children! She was nicknamed the mother in law of Europe as she married off her children into imperial households all over the world by arranged marriages. The only child of hers that was allowed to marry for love was one of her daughter Maria Christina who was actually her 5th child. The Habsburg dynasty was certainly not known for its beauty as the amount of interbreeding between the family made everyone look rather strange according to Ingrid! We walked around the outside of the palace admiring lots of different sections of it with the oldest being from the 13th century and that was the church called the Hofburg Chapel. This is now used for the Hofmusikkapelle which is a boys choir that sings and you pay pay to watch them. The treasury is also located in this area where you can view the Imperial Crown of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation which was created in the second half of the 10th century and used to crown the empire emperors. The second important crown is the Austrian Imperial Crown made in 1602 as a private crown for Emperor Rudolf II and acted as the crown for the new Austrian Empire. In the treasury there isn’t many jewels from Maria Theresa as when her husband died she continued to wear only black for the rest of her life and gave away all her beautiful gowns and coloured jewels to her daughters and nieces. So Vienna doesn’t have a royal family at present because Austria became a republic and the government passed a law banishing the Habsburgs from Austrian territory until they renounced all intentions of regaining the throne and accepted the status of mere citizens! There are some Habsburgs out there in the community that have some seriously interesting ancestors and Ingrid said she had some friends that are Habsburgs. We continued out through these beautiful wooden 17th century gates called the Swiss Gates which display the many titles of Emperor Ferdinand I and on the ceiling there is the different regions of Vienna and their respective coat of arms. Standing in Heroes Square we could look over at the Hofburg which is the former Imperial Palace of the Habsburg dynasty and today serves as the official residence and workplace of the president of Austria. There is a balcony that looks out onto Heroes Square which is where Hitler addressed the citizens of Austria and proclaimed the Anschluss of Austria into the Nazi Third Reich. Its bone chilling to see photos of the exact place and know that we were standing where this happened. We chatted away to Ingrid as we walked to the next point of interest and she mentioned that her favourite ski field in Austria is Obertauern which is something we will have to look in to! We walked around to where we had already been which was the Spanish Riding School ticket office which is opposite the Sisi Museum. Sisi is the nickname of Empress Elizabeth of Austria who was married to Emperor Franz Joseph I from the age of 16. She was originally from Munich and born into the Royal Bavarian house of Wittelsbach. She was the Empress for many different countries and made an effort to learn the language of each country so that she could speak to her people in their own language. She had hair down to the ground that took two hours to be brushed which is when she learnt her languages of which she knew 7! The empress had an interesting life after having such a relaxed childhood she wasn’t prepared for the formal Habsburg court life and suffered greatly when her only son and his mistress died in a murder-suicide at his hunting lodge. This caused her to withdraw from her court duties and she only wore black dresses and even jewellery from then onwards which included the even more rare black diamonds and pearls. She was actually stabbed to death in Geneva by an Italian Anarchist but she remained the longest serving Empress of Austria at 44 years. We unfortunately didn’t get a chance to visit this museum but will have to add it to our list when we come back to Vienna. Ingrid walked us past the Holy Trinity Column or the Plague Column which was erected after the Great Plague epidemic in 1679. It was actually erected whilst the plague was still raging the city as a Pestsäule made of wood with the Virgin Mary on to was supposed to give citizens hope of survival. The last stop of the day was outside the beautiful St Stephan’s Cathedral with its tiled roof which is where we said goodbye to Ingrid. She gave us some ideas on exploring Vienna and answered our main question of where can you get the best schnitzel of which Vienna is so famous for. Turns out the answer is everywhere because the Viennese are so particular about their schnitzel it is all excellent! We didn’t realise that the traditional schnitzel is made out of veal as opposed to chicken, beef or pork which we had been seeing around. We could see a Manner store over in the distance which we hadn’t spotted the other night when we were here and if you have been following our blogs this year you will recognise these products. Every time we leave the UK I hunt these down in every grocery store. This is the first time iv understood addiction haha!! So it’s a company from Vienna that was initially invented in 1898 by Josef Manner I and the recipe has not changed since then. One thing I did learn after this visit to the store is that the logo actually has St Stephan’s cathedral as part of it and the flagship store is located in Stephansplatz. They sell 4,000 Manner wafers at this store everyday and around two packs of them are eaten every second! So seems im not the only one with an addiction to them! So if you haven’t tried them before il explain why the are so good. They are made up of five layers of wafers filled with four layers of hazelnut cocoa cream and these are vegan certified which I also didn’t realise until we visited!! I knew they were dairy free based on the ingredients listed on the back but never realised they also had vegan certification! So we brought a few bar and some xmas presents for our Grans and I think we know that we will have to ship them to them regularly after they try them! Now it was time for dinner before we headed to the airport because as much as I love Manner I didn’t want just them for dinner…but we had dessert sorted! I had done some google searching earlier in the day for the best schnitzel which was before we were told they are ALL good and there was a place called Figlmueller which was a 10 minute walk away and describe themselves as the home of the schnitzel. Plus the reviews had said the schnitzel is literally so big it falls over the edges of the plate. We made our way there and despite it being 5pm there was a queue out the door. However, it didn’t take us long to get a table down in their cosy basement where for the first time all day we were able to properly thaw out. For €14.90 (£13/$25 nzd) we each ordered a pork schnitzel (veal was a bit expensive!) and a side salad. I kid you not we were SO surprised when it arrived and they really were not wrong about the schnitzel literally spilling over the sides of the plate! We realised that one would have been sufficient for the both of us. It was lovely and crispy but we certainly missed having a nice sauce to put on top of it. We had to take about half of it home in a doggy bag and clearly they are used to this as they have all the packaging ready to go. And by home I mean on the plane back to London and I would have it for my lunch the next two day!! So a little about Figlmueller if your planning on going to Vienna and want to visit. It is a family business that is in its fourth generation today since it was opened in 1905! The restaurant was huuuge and it was so easy to get lost in it as we finished up and decided to make our way to the airport. As we left the restaurant it had begun to snow outside very lightly and we walked through the chilly air to the underground. It was a little tricky working out the different trains to get there and we stood outside at the station waiting for the next airport one to arrive in 15 minutes. Once we arrived at the airport our flight was delayed by an hour, then once we arrived back in London the Gatwick Express wasn’t running. It was 11pm at night and took us 90 minutes to get a train to London Bridge Station. Of course with it being a Sunday the night tubes were not running and when we arrived the station was closed and we had to wait in the cold for an Uber. Finally we got home at 1am with my alarm set for 06.20am when I would have to go to a 12 hour shift!! Oh dear, the joys of weekend adventures I guess! But Vienna was a stunning city and we hope to be back in Austria soon to hunt down some powder!

Josefsplatz with the Spanish Riding School hall behind it

Holy Trinity Column or the Plague Column

Hofburg Chapel now used for the boy choir Hofmusikkapelle

Josefsplatz with the Spanish Riding School hall on the right

The addition for Maria Theresa and all her children

Heros Square with the balcony which Hitler spoke from

Hitler addressing the crowd at Heros Square off the Balcony of the Hofburg

ShannenNovember 16, 2018