Vienna
Trip Start
Jun 28, 2008
1
13
27
Trip End
Aug 29, 2008
Vienna,
Vienna,
Austria
Thursday, July 24, 2008
July 24, 2008
Another early morning bus ride through Cesky Krumlov and on to Vienna. The drive was beautiful with hills and valleys lines with trees and houses. Everything is very old compared to home and has so much character. Christina stayed in Cesky but another girl, Belinda got back on the bus so we decided despite the rain to book a night bike tour. She was only going to be in Vienna for the night so it really is one of the best ways to see the city. We hoped for some clear weather. I wasn't really feeling well and went and bought some antacids...hopefully it was all in German!! Seemed to work :)
The rain let up and there was a group of 17 of us. They gave us ponchos... classic tourist and we road through the city. Our guide was American but knew every bit of history possible about every building and every myth that went along with them. After the tour I had so many places to see but only one day to see them. I did some much needed laundry but unfortunately the machine didn't really spin so I had dripping cloths... ah... hostels!!
July 25, 2008
We had met a girl from the Toronto area and she ended up in Vienna also so we went to the Schonbrunn Palace. The monarch family of Austria had lived there up until 1916 so the room were still fairly decorated with all sorts of old things. It was very interesting to see and I like this palace more than Versailles although both beautiful I really like seeing how people would have lived. Schonbrunn is massive and has over 1500 rooms. We spent the morning there and did the "grand tour" with the hand held audio guides. The gardens were also amazing. No one family needs that much space or luxury but I guess it is more of a symbol of power/wealth. We had some lunch at the Palace but my stomach still wasn't great so I went back to the hostel and had a nap.
I met up with Erica later and we went to Mozart's apartment. We spent a couple hours there learning about his life, seeing his home, and seeing some of his hand written music. Grandma would have loved it!
Tomorrow... Greece... and hopefully warm weather!
