Vienna Travel Diary - Day 2

Well Hello and welcome to day 2 of my Vienna Photo Diary. I you haven't read my Day 1 photo diary, I recommend heading over (here) and see what we got up to on day 1. I think you'll start seeing a bit of pattern with these post and that is that I love royal history so when Michael said that we could head just out of the city to Schönbrunn Palace, let's just say I was slightly over the moon. Keep reading to find out more about things to do at Schönbrunn Palace.

Schönbrunn Palace was original the imperial summer residence for the Austria Imperial Family and is located around about 10-15 minutes from the city centre (on the train system). It's the main tourist hotspot so we knew that this was going to be a full day activities so we went for around 11am and spent most of the day there. Along with the tour of the palace itself, the gardens of this palace are HUGE and I could have sat here all day and not moved.

The mass scale of this building is eye opening. I remember just standing with a opened mouth because I don't think I've ever seen anything this big in my life. We decided to do the Grand Tour which was €17,50 and this got you in to the state rooms and private apartments of the palace. Like the Hofburg in my last post (here) you were given a audio speaker to hear all about the history behind the palace. 

The tour can take around 40-50 minutes depending on how interested you are in Austria Imperial history you are. I took in everything, if you know me you will know that I'm a absolutely lover of royal history it doesn't depend on what royal family I'm just fascinated. The tour goes into detail about 40 rooms in the palace and fascinating stories spanning 3 centuries. We headed in the Palace Gardens and like when I first saw the palace, I was amazed by the size and beauty of surrounding I was standing in. We decided in the morning that we would buy lunch in the city and bring it with us to save a couple of euros. We found a little spot and sat and took in the views around us. I think getting to take in the garden was a favourite part of my day and I got to see a squirrel (easily pleased can you tell).

What we learnt after we got our tickets was that if we had bought the classic pass we could have done even more in the grounds of the palace including Crown Prince Garden, Maze & Labyrinth (a part I would have loved to do), The orangery garden and the Gloriette with the viewing terrace. I would definitely recommend getting the Classic pass (€24) instead of the Grand pass as you can get do a lot more within the ground. 

We headed around to the Palm House and it reminded me of somewhere similar England with what the outside looking very Victorian and 18th century. Before looking further into the ground we decided to head up to the Gloriette, I was slightly gutted that we couldn't go up to the viewing terrace but the view from the Gloriette was stunning itself. 

Here we just sat and took in the view and the beauty of our surroundings, how couldn't we. 

The grounds has 32 sculptures and Roman Ruins dotted around including the Neptune Fountian and what was originally known as the Ruin of Carthage.

Roman ruins is not really what you really expect to see in the grounds but it was kind of like a treasure hunt to see how many sculptures and ruins you could find dotted around. You could feel the wealth that the Austria imperial had was known by the mass scale of everything they built. 

I definitely think I left a small piece of my heart in Schronbrunn, it was everything I could have expected from a imperial palace, I felt like I was in a movie and was prancing around like a princess for most the day. This is definitely a tourist hot spot but if you go early and take lunch and search the grounds you can definitely get away from the large groups. 

We left Schonbrunn around 3pm after spending a good 3 or 4 hours there. Michael had read online about a Ferris wheel that gave you great views of Vienna. We decided to head down straight from Schonbrunn rather then head back to the air bnb. 

After a short trip on the train we ended up in Leopoldstadt and headed to the Prater to go on Weiner Reisenrad (€9). Tickets got you a little tour of the history of the Ferris wheel and on to the Ferris wheel.

The carriages can carry about 10 people and you get around 15 minutes inside. I have to say it's nothing like the London Eye and it does shake a bit but it is 120 years old it still gives you great views of Vienna. We had wanted ti di when it was getting dark but we learnt that it didn't get dark till around 10pm so settled with around 4pm. 

That was day 2 of our little trip to Vienna and I have to say this day was definitely my favourite day. If you fancy being a princess for the day and if you love a bit of European history I would recommend spending as much time at Schohbrunn as possible. This day made me fall even more in love with Vienna. We had 1 more day left in Vienna, so keep an eye out for that post coming soon. 

Vienna Travel Diary - Day 1

Everyone has a bucket list of places that they want to go to on holiday and one of mine has always been Austria, I really want to go to Salzburg so I can go on the Sound of Music tour but when Michael found cheap flights to Vienna which is on the other side of Austria I knew I couldn't turn the opportunity to tick it off my bucket list.

Austria is located in Central Europe with Vienna located to the east of Austria and is famous for it's cultural events, its imperial sights, coffee houses and the Viennese charm. With tonnes of history throughout the city with Imperial Palaces, baroque building located all over the city and beautiful gardens on your doorstep its a tourist heaven.

Monday was out first day and was maybe one of the most beautiful days when it came to weather.  We went to Vienna with a bit of a plan nothing huge but a few places we knew we wanted to see. Monday we ticked off one of the places that was on my list which was the Stephansdom which is one of Vienna's most prominent Gothic Cathedrals. Ever since I went Wroclaw in Poland I kind of fell in love with looking at cathedrals, so when I go to a new city in Europe I have to check out the cathedrals they have so much history behind them and they are some of the most beautiful building to be created in a lot of cities. Stephansdom didn't let me down it was beautiful inside and with holy mass being held while we were there the atmosphere was amazing. Back outside Michael attempted his best King Kong impression! 

After checking out Stephansdom and climbing to 

the top of the tower to check out the view of Vienna (which is beautiful to see) which cost us €4.50 for us this was the opportunity to spot out where we wanted to go and it was great to see the city from the sky. We decided to head towards the Hofburg Palace, I'm pretty sure Vienna is known for its stunning palaces, The Hofburg Palace is 1 of 3 main palaces in Vienna it is the former imperial palace and was home for the Hasburg dynasty and is now home to the President of Austria and lets just say this place is big. We decided to go for the Sisi-Museum and Silver Collection Tour, this cost us €13.90 each which I think is reasonable for the amount you get to see. The Sisi Museum was definitely something I won't forget, the exhibition has personal belonging of Sisi and the myths behind the Empress as well discussing here assassination, when you enter you get giving a little audio speaker which goes into dept all through out the museum. I'm a massive history junkie so I was in my element.

Vienna was hot while we were there on Monday it was 24 degree if not hotter. Michael had heard that the MuseumQuartier (Museum Quarter) was the place to relax and get some ice cream, so we headed up there. The MuseumQuartier was originally the imperial stables and now hosts 10 different museums ranging from kids museums to Theatre. In the MuseumQuartier we found a great little ice cream stall where you could buy maybe the nicest ice cream ever which was from Biosk. We decided to chill there for a bit before  heading up to see something that Michael was really interested in seeing. 

Vienna has 6 Flakturm which are above ground anti-aircraft gun blockhouse towers which were built around 1943-44 by the Nazis. These are dotted around the city in pairs and not been used since the end of the Second World War but Michael had found that one of these had been cleverly redeveloped into an Aquarium (Hans Des Meeres) and that you were able to go to the top for €5 (you do have to put a €10 deposit down for the keys) and again the views from here were amazing. This isn't one of them attractions that is huge with tourist so was quiet and great for taking pictures.

After a long day of discovering Vienna we decided to head back to our AirBnB which was located not to far from the city centre. Our AirBnB host gave use some great recommendation to get something to eat including Figlmuller which is well known for selling traditional Schnitzel (I'm going to talk about food in a different post so click here to find out more) it was on the pricey side but was highly recommended and it is very well known in Vienna. A lot of bars were closed because it was a national holiday but we found Roberto American Bar before heading back to our apartment to relax ready for our second day exploring Vienna...