Visiting Vienna!

Hi, it's Holls!
Sorry for the delay. We were actually  in Vienna from the 10th to the 13th of July. Okay, so it was a little while ago but now it doesn't matter 'cause you'll hear about it anyways, delay or not!

For starters, Vienna has two FABULOUS palaces, one of which we visited on our first day. That palace was called Schonbrunn and was the summer palace. It was beautiful and fully furnished! Our audio guides (greatest thing for a museum go-er since........... well, museums) explained about all of the people and furniture that were ever there. After that, we made our way into the city. Unfortunately, as soon as we got there, it started to rain. So we popped into a cafeteria and had a quick but good lunch before heading out again (the rain had stopped) went to the Stephansdom. It's an amazing Romanesque style church with a brightly colored shingle roof, as we soon found out when we took an elevator up to a high tower where we got a great view of the city! Ever heard of the legendary Sacher (pronounced Sa-Ka) torte???? OF COURSE YOU HAVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, guess what??!! We went to the Sacher hotel (very fancy) and ate ORIGINAL SACHER TORTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then we walked to the Hofburg (winter palace). After the busy day, everyone was a bit pooped so we got a horse and carriage ride.

On the second day, we went to see the Lipizzaners! Sorry, that was only half true. We saw the summer show, because the trained horses were on their well earned vacation. You might wonder exactly what the show was then... the show consisted of :

• The young Lipizzaners playing around. Even then they were very obedient and certainly looked well bred.
• Lipizzaner drawn carriages in different dances. We learned a bit about the history of the carriages too.
• The newborn Lipizzaners with their mothers. How sweet!

The young Lipizzaners will be trained this upcoming fall! We sat down for lunch at "Cafe Central", a beautifully decorated cafe with delicious food and dessert (coffee as well I am told). After that, we split up to go museuming! The girls went to the Sisi museum and the boy's set off with the intention of going to the natural history museum, but that was closed so they ended up going to the Vienna Children's museum. Sadly, I can't tell you about where the boys went, but the Sisi museum was extremely interesting and will most likely take up a lot of time. First of all, I have to tell you about the Hapsburgs. The Hapsburgs were the imperial family in Austria beginning in the late 13th century and then ruled for more than 600 years. Empress Elizabeth, nicknamed Sisi, was the young wife of Emperor Franz Joseph. Sisi was born in Munich as the Duchess of Bavaria. Her full name was Elizabeth Amaile Eugenie. At age 17, she unhappily married the emperor of Austria. She suffered a distressed life with the death of her eldest daughter and son and eventually got stabbed to death by an Italian. Happy life, huh? That night we went to a concert in the Orangerie of the Schonbrunn! There was traditional Austrian dancing, opera and and orchestra!

Well, that just about sums up our trip to Vienna! If you search around a bit on the blog, you'll find some pictures from Vienna. Hope everything is going well where you lot are. XOXO.......
-Holly