Day 10 – July 6: Three Royal Palaces in One Day

With only one day to see the rest of Vienna, we knew it was going to be a big day – and it was!  We started off finishing the rest of the walking tour we didn’t get to yesterday, namely the Hofburg Palace and surroundings.  We entered as the Habsburgs used to, from the Michaelerplatz side near the Spanish Winter Riding School.  

Before entering the gate, we walked down the block to Joseph’s Square (Josefsplatz) which is in front of the Austrian National Library, billed as one of the most beautiful libraries in the world.  How could we resist that??  We paid to enter the State Hall filled with marble accents, ceiling paintings, and one of the best book collections in the world started with books from a private library dating back to the 1300s.  There was also a special exhibit on Emperor Franz Josef on the 100^th anniversary of his death.  This was the start of our Franz Josef education that would continue all day.  I would love to say that I really learned a ton about the politics of the region and his foreign and domestic policies, but I was much more interested in the murder of his wife Sisi and the fact that she found another woman to keep her husband entertained while she traveled the world doing whatever she wanted.  

We saw the outside of the rest of the Hofburg Palace complex (the Imperial Apartments, the Treasury, Chapel, and the New Palace) but decided to save interior tours for our next stop: Schloss Schonbrunn.

We took the metro to a stop near Schonbrunn so that we could have lunch at the third of the top-three Lonely Planet-recommended vegetarian restaurants.  And this one was wonderful!  We sat on the outdoor patio under a roof of grapevines and sampled many of their delicious options.  From the restaurant it was short walk to Schonbrunn. 

We took the audio tour through 40 of the approximately 1500 rooms in the castle and learned so much more about the Habsburgs.  Maria Theresa used this palace as her summer home and redecorated it in the rococo style.  I learned yesterday that she had 16 children but didn’t put it together until today that one of those daughters was Marie Antoinette.  Franz Joseph used this Palace quite a bit too and died there 100 years ago in the middle of WWI. 

After our tour we went into the massive gardens and, of course, couldn’t leave without doing the hedge maze. 

Though it was getting late, we were determined to get to the Belvedere Palace in time to see the Klimt collection housed in the Upper Belvedere museum.  The Kiss really is magnificent in person, and so are many of his other paintings.  The girls both liked Judith, and I was partial to his landscapes like Avenue in Schloss Kammer Park.

Since we didn’t have an opera option for tonight and weren’t excited about the “just for tourists” concerts that were offered, we decided to go see “The Third Man” – the 1949 Orson Welles movie set in Vienna – that is shown daily in English at a central movie theater right on the Ringstrasse.  We only had 30 minutes before the movie to eat dinner and the restaurant next door said if we could order quickly, they would serve us quickly.  We had pretty low expectations given we were on such a major tourist thoroughfare, but I Tricolori served up some of the best pizza we’ve had since Italy!   We loved the movie too – I’m sure we liked it more having just walked through many of the areas featured in the film.  It was also really interesting to see the city as it was just after the war.  Many things remain just as they were (and had been for many, many years) but at the same time it provided a good visual for the city looked like when it was still in rubble. 

After dinner we wanted to drop in someplace for tea and dessert and went to another restaurant right next to the theater, La Mocca Kaffee.  We did a redo on yesterday’s underwhelming Sachar Café – a sachertorte (chocolate cake) and an apple strudel.  We enjoyed both so much more this second time around!

We took a leisurely stroll back through the beautiful buildings of the Museum Quarter as we made our way to the metro.  We returned to our hotel to watch Portugal beat Wales in the Euro 2016.   We managed to see a whole lot of Vienna in a crazy two days, but have no doubt we missed just as much.  Our interest has definitely been piqued!