Wednesday, July 04, 2012

12 Days, 6 Cities - Vienna

Next stop on our holiday was the Imperial capital down the Danube, Wien (aka Vienna). I'll admit it, I was pretty relieved to be in a city where I could read and understand the various signs and could speak the local language. In fact, I checked into our hotel speaking German! Then Ma asked me what language I was speaking. When I said German, she said, "They speak German in Austria?!" She's so suess!

After checking in, we decided to ride the u-bahn and have a look at some of the Altstadt and Danube.
The Stephansdom at Stephansplatz!

Ooh, gothic!

Believe it or not, the Danube was actually quite blue in colour! Definitely more blue than it was in Budapest. 

Pretty!

Ma and Pa looking the wrong way.

That night, we had dinner at Figlmueller - a place where Pooey not only ate at a few years ago, but a place that was recommended by Markus who lists Wiener Schnitzel as one of his favourite meals! Funny side story. It was pretty hot and we weren't looking our best. Standing directly in front of us in the queue were three girls from Hong Kong. I don't speak Cantonese but I knew they were talking about us - this was confirmed to me by Ma who said they thought we came from Mainland China. What an insult! When the waiter came to ascertain table numbers, he asked in English, if we were a table of six. I then said in German, "O nein, wir drei sind zusammen (We three are together)" while indicating to Ma and Pa. Ma said the girls' faces had this reaction
Hehehe
Anyway, onto what we had for dinner!
Cordon Bleu and salad for me!

More fish for Pa

And Ma had the famous schnitzel - it's almost as wide as she is!

The next morning we got up and made our way to Schoenbrunn, the summer palace of the Austro-Hungarian Habsburgs emperors. And as with such an illustrious history, it has plenty of impressive vistas to keep bored Emperors and Empresses, various court hangers-ons, and future generations of tourists amused.
Looking large and regal.

And looking away over the cour d'honneur

In the backyard of the palace, looking towards the Gloriette. 

The formal Great Parterre

The Neptune Fountain

Looking back from the fountain to the Palace

Ma declined to climb the hill up to the Gloriette so I took lots of pictures to give her the experience!
Halfway up!

Some portalook - time for a quicki? :P

Closer...

Pa takes a rest closer up

But we've got a great view of the Palace from here! Trying to be regal in my giant hat.

Pa gets cheesey!

We made it up there! 

And were rewarded by a view of, not only the Palace, 

but of the city as a whole. 

The Gloriette itself is kinda pretty. There's a very expensive cafe up there. 

A view into the gardens is also up there!

The gardens are really dense
We then took the audiotour through the palace itself. It's really pretty but you know, after a while all these royal palaces become interchangeable. We had some sandwiches in the garden for lunch and afterwards I went to head off to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Ma and Pa were kinda tired and not willing to walk through a few floors of one of the best collections of Europe. Seriously. I'd put it up there with the Louvre and National Gallery. 
Photography of the works is not allowed but here's the afternoon tea of Erbeertorte and Gruener Veltliner

After a few hours in the gallery, I made my way back to our hotel where Ma and Pa were resting. It turned out that while I was making my way through the Titian, Rubens, and Velasquez, they decided to get onto a random tram and ride it, hoping that it would take them past some of the sites of Vienna. It did, but it also took them to...well, I can only describe it was *Ghetto Vienna*...but they found a Viet restaurant that they said was pretty good. It was decided that we'd have dinner there since our next two stops were in Spain and we wouldn't be eating Asian food there.
Kang kong!

Ummm, I think this was lemongrass chicken. 

Bun cha gio. Interesting wrappers but the nuoc mam pre-poured onto it. That was kinda weird.

My Bun Bo Hue was also kinda strange. Ma said it was *Northern style*
Ma noted while we were eating that something was strange. There were no flies buzzing around despite the door to the restaurant was WIDE OPEN!!! Truly, it was AMAZING!!!! 

And after this, we went back to pack for our next stop - Barcelona!!!

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