Day 11 – April 26 Tuesday

We had a big 15 minute sleep in this morning, we didn’t need to leave until 7.45am so it was another nice breakfast at the Hilton before heading off with Sylvia, our tour guide to the Schombrunn Palace.  This was the summer palace of the Maria Teresa of the Austrian Empire & is very large & ornate with beautiful gardens & fountains.  We were the first tour group into the palace & we nearly completed our tour before anyone else was let in.  The wooden inlay flooring is magnificent & the gilding, candelabra & wall finishes are superb.  An interesting aspect was the porcelain heaters in each room, fed wood by the servants from special hidden alcoves.  The paintings of people & special events was also interesting, one wedding painting had a portrait of Mozart when he was a boy of 6 years old & a recognised child prodigy, skilful in both piano & violin.  We saw the court bed where Empress Maria Teresa gave birth to some of her 16 children, watched on by the official court to ensure the birth was real & a potential heir was not exchanged.  Sylvia was excellent explaining all of the people & dates & moments in history that were important.  We had a brief walk in the gardens after the palace tour & walked up to an impressive large fountain that featured horses & men that were half fish, very impressive.

Next was a tour through the Habsburg burial crypt where the royal family have been interred over the centuries in elaborate coffins.  Their hearts are in another place & their intestines another place again, it is only the embalmed bodies that are in the tin coffins (These people don’t rest in “peace” but rest in pieces).  The elaborate coffin of Maria Teresa weighs 15 tonne (she & her beloved husband are the only 2 in one coffin). The tour by Sylvia was very interesting & again she impressed us with the names & dates of people & events & how & when they died. This was followed by a horse-drawn carriage ride around the inner city with the driver pointing out sites of interest, it was a rather novel way of seeing Vienna.  The rest of the afternoon was free time so we walked around the city a bit more, with a highlight being St Stephen’s Cathedral, a really impressive baroque style building.  Inside was also very elaborate, with multiple altars, marble floors & stone carving everywhere.  There were lots of visitors inside the cathedral & a few locals tried to worship. We also went into an art museum featuring Monet, Picasso & others, as usual some nice works & some rubbish.

At 5pm we headed out of town again to a small village famous for white asparagus & the mansion we were dining in, over 300 years old.  As our bus pulled up we were greeted by staff holding out a welcome banner & a red ribbon to cut to enter the restaurant, they made us feel very special, a violin, accordion & piano player played some Viennese & other popular music.   Famous guests included Bonaparte, Empress Maria Teresa & more recently loads of celebrities such as Margaret Fonteyn, Rudolph Nureyv, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, etc.  The walls of the restaurant are covered with photos & names of all these people.  The ceiling is adorned with all sorts of things, like violins, piano accordions, trumpets, tubas, etc.  The toilets are also very special, decked out with old postcards of semi clothed men & women, boars heads, etc, it really has to be seen to be believed.  We started with apple schnapps.  The dinner was once again very good, traditional Viennese fare washed down by local wine.

Next was a trip back into town & a classical music ( Mozart & Strauss) concert in a Viennese concert hall.  The musicians were excellent & they were complemented by a pair of ballet dancers & a pair of opera singers.  Intermission was on the terrace with a glass of champagne followed by more excellent classical music.  The band was passionate & it showed in the music.  All in all a magical day in Vienna.