Saturday 11 August Vienna

Saturday 11 August   Vienna

Boat arrived Vienna overnight & here we are, we had made a selection on the tour earlier & S & I chose Schonnbrunn Palace over the Hofburg Palace. Schonbrunn being the summer cottage of the Habsburgs where they came in the summer to get away from the possible plague, once again think Versaille, one room leading onto the next, each more magnificently over the top with rococco white walls & gold decoration.  A famous Habsburg was Maria Theresa who ruled for 40 years in middle of the 19th C and had 16 children while she was about it, one of whom was Marie Antoinette. This  place had a folly up in the distance, to which Maria Theresa was carried by litter, all 240 lbs of her, in the arvo for a cup of hot chocolate & then back again....that's the afternoon done.

Next stop for S & I was the Hotel Sacher for Sacher Torte, very popular spot & we had to share the table with a couple of Dutch chaps (& I mean couple) who were on a minibreak to celebrate the 50th birthday of one of them.  They had travelled to Australia & done the rounds of the place, including the Ghan from Adelaide to Darwin & then a bus trip from Darwin to Cairns.  The cake was delicious but required lashings of whipped cream as vv rich.

After lunch (cake) we looked at the Hofburg Palace which was the town house ( probably 1000 rooms) of the Habsburgs,  really more of the same, gold, white, huge. I regretted not going to the art gallery for the Klimt exhibition, lots of his works (including "the kiss" )together for the 150th anniversary of his birthday, but S was stuffed & did not want to walk any further.

Back to the boat to put our glad rags on for our evening of culture at the Palais Pallavicini, really it was like dining at one of the Palaces we saw today, very very fancy, but the chef not as good as the one on the boat - no opera singers & ballet on the boat though.  Really a lot of fun, great theatre.