Austria was my favorite country on the trip (even better than the Netherlands, which is saying quite a bit because of my deep-seated love for Holland, being of Dutch descent). Austria has everything - beautiful lakes, thriving farmland, awesome mountains, and wonderful cities to boot. Vienna certainly was a wonderful city.
The day we arrived was gorgeous. We made a dash for the Lipizzaner Spanish Riding School, which is in the same palace complex as some government things and I think other royal stuff.
In case you don't know or forgot, the Lipizzaners are Spanish horses (not some royal Austrian family you rarely hear about!), and Vienna is the home of a riding school where only these horses are used. Why only these horses? And why in Vienna? The story goes that the king who first brought these horses to the area (he was a Hapsburg, I'm sure) was educated in Spain (or was from Spain...? All that inter-marrying gets confusing) and wanted to bring Spanish riding along with him. If I understand correctly, he also brought some Spanish horses, which are fairly stocky (think: not thoroughbred racers), and started a stud farm in the best place possible which happened to be called Lipizzia (located in present-day Slovenia). And so...he started a riding school in Vienna, and from those first horses, more and more have been bred.It was really neat to see the school, to learn about some of the theory behind their training, to hear how the horses are treated like "employees" (they had just come back from their annual 2-month vacation out on a farm, away from the demands of their work at the school/stables), and to see the beautiful horses. We didn't get a chance to see them practice or perform, but we did get to see what most people don't: the cat that lives in their barn.
After the horses, we took a walk around one of the "Ring-Roads" that go around the central part of the old city. Many famous buildings are there, including the opera house. And this place, which I forget what it's called, but it was pretty and isn't the sky a gorgeous blue??
After some more sight-seeing, we went to the hotel and went to find a coffeeshop to have some "kaffee melagne" (I must note that I don't think I ever had a proper version of this) and cake. And at night we went to a concert where we heard tons of Strauss (there were many Strausses, all from Vienna) and, in celebration of his 250th birthday, Mozart. Very wonderful.The next morning, when we stepped out of the hotel, we found the blue sky of the previous day had turned a very ugly grey. It was under these drizzly skies that we went to the summer palace (of the Hapsburgs...it's yellow; in case you wonder, that's the color of the Hapsburgs).
It was much nicer to be inside. We had a lovely tour of the palace and heard lots of stories about the people who lived there.We also took a short stroll through the gardens, which were all wet (and have a hedge maze!! We didn't find it, but it's there!!), and which were hit by something like 240 bombs during The War. The house palace was hit by only one. I found this very interesting and don't quite know what it means.
There was one other stop during my time in Vienna, but you'll have to wait for tomorrow to find out what that was. You do know what Tuesday is, don't you?
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