Vienna - part 2

Well, we've enjoyed our time in Vienna, and not just because it gave us a chance to rest our bums! The city is pretty amazing, with a lot of things to see, much of it centred around the Hapsburg dynasty. One visit on our list was Schönbrunn castle, and so we headed off there on Wednesday, arriving around 11.30. It turns out it was on every other tourist's list as well. We got to the ticket office to be informed there was a 5 hour (!) wait for entry. A photo out the front and that was the end of that so we headed back into town to visit the Nachtmarket food area and had a very nice Israeli lunch and a pleasant wander around. The rest of the afternoon was mostly just mooching around the city while resolving to get smart and buy online tickets for Schönbrunn to enable us to visit at a reasonable time. That turned out to be today, and thanks to Kate for helping us with the online ticket purchase (James can't get his "verified by visa" to work over here)...

Thursday saw us heading to the Belvedere castle/museum, which has the biggest Klimt collection in the world, along with a host of other significant Austrian artists, as well as some Monets, Manets and Van Goghs and Cezannes. It was extraordinarily impressive, even if we got a little frustrated with the lack of courtesy shown by many of our fellow tourists. Klimt's "The Kiss" was the big attraction, and it was strange to watch people hurry to the gallery, focus on a selfie with the picture and move on. James is no big art enthusiast, but even he thought it was worth some time in contemplation at this point, rather than using it as a box ticking exercise. Such is the way of the modern world, I guess.

The exterior of the building was nearly as impressive as the art collection, some attempts at demonstrating this are below...

After lunch back in the city, we moved on the the Hapsburg crypt, which was also fascinating. Gillian was particularly interested in seeing the interment of Maria Theresa and her many children. Some of them were very young, which made for some somber reflections.

We also went to see the Austrian National Library, which has a fantastic collection of very old manuscripts from around the world, some of which were on display. James and Kieran were particularly fascinated by the old maps and there depiction (or otherwise) of Australia. James has ambitions to have a similarly scaled library one day, although managing to accomplish that would be some feat!

Obsessed as we are by food, one of the highlights was dinner at Melker Stiftskeller, which boasts one of the best pork knuckles in Vienna. It was huge, salty and tasty, with plenty of saurkraut and a couple of nice beers to wash it all down. We had to roll home, but totally worth it.

Today saw two of us (G&J) head back to Schönbrunn, while one (K) took the opportunity to go for a solo wander through the city. Everyone enjoyed themselves, with Gillian and James amazed by the scale of the palace and grounds, as well as the volume of tourists inside the castle for the self-guided tour. Getting up to the "Gloriette" gave magnificent views over the city, poorly captured by the picture below. But all-in-all it is quite clear why this remains the number one tourist attraction in Austria.

Tonight sees us catching up with Dan, who used to work with James at ANU, and then getting ready for the ride to Bratislava tomorrow. It will feel strange to getback on the bike again, but no doubt we'll quickly remember what we're doing...