We have had another wonderful day. We started with a trip out to the summer palace Schonbrunn Palace which has its own UBahn station. It has 1,441 rooms and Baroque style and goes back about 300 years. I was a little worried when we arrived as there were so many people all heading in the same direction as us but as we had already paid for our ticket as part of a deal with Hopburg and the Sisi Museum we were able to jump the queue a bit. It was really busy with some in tour groups coming in at the same time as us, but had a great audio guide which meant I happily walked through listening and stopping when something caught my eye.

As you can imagine it is massive and sadly again no photos within the Palace, I know yawn. So a few things I picked up in the audio guide President John F Kennedy and Jacqui O attended a gala dinner at the Palace with the Soviet Leader of the time Nikita Khrushchev in 1961. This was where the two leaders discussed issues in relation to the Cold War and the Berlin crisis. The crisis that the Russians were concerned that Germany was again posing a real threat. Kennedy whilst understanding the concerns said yeah nah (to cut a long story short). Another item of interest (to me) was that there were two rooms still in tact from when Napoleon was in residence. Napoleons only legitimate son, Napoleon Francois Charles Joseph Bonaparte came to live in Vienna with this grandfather and died at the Palace at the age of 21. It appears that (let’s call him Franz) had a poorly chest but was intent on a military career and whilst out commanding men was struck down by a fever and came back to the palace and after a night out in the crisps April air came down with pneumonia and died – it seems he was another who had a sad short life. Whilst there are no photos I have plenty of photos of the outside and the extraordinary garden.

It was fabulous just walking through the gardens so much so that we decided to have lunch there. As I was very concerned about not sampling enough of the traditional foods of Austria, I hade an apple strudel for lunch – check this out it looks like a plate of whipped cream with strudel on the side. It was difficult to finish but I was up to the challenge.

Before leaving Steve and I along with the thousands of other tourists there today wished some newly weds all the best.

We then headed to Belvedere Palace, catching a couple of trains and then a 10 minute walk. The Belvedere is made up of two Baroque palaces built in the early eighteenth century, sadly today I only had time for one of the palaces. The Belvedere was at one time the summer residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy between 1663-1736.

Again another fabulous audio guide, the total price was 19 euro for entry and the guide. The Belvedere holds the greatest collection of Austrian art dating back to the Middle Ages, I have included some of my favourites from today, it was incredibly difficult to choose.

It was a great way to spend the afternoon and of course I got to see Kiss, by Klimt… it looked as beautiful as it does on our lounge room( thanks mum).

We then headed back to St Stephan’s to catch the lift to the top of the cathedral. What a debacle we were in a queue for the lift from about 6.15 thinking we had plenty of time as it didn’t close until 7.30. Nope they stopped taking people up at about 6.20. Fortunately Steve had seen on the website that there was a tour up to the attic at 7.00pm and we decided to take it. It was a German speaking tour however the guy who had take us on the crypt tour arrived and said that he was happy to give us a run down when we got to the top, and he did. So up we 125 steps and wow..

And then up a further 120 steps….

This tour only goes on a Saturday night runs at 7.00pm (sharp) and is in German. If you are coming to Vienna do yourself a favour and stay over the weekend, it is absolutely worth it.