Today has been a big day logging up over 22,000 steps while traversing this beautiful city on the underground, trams and by foot. We took in the opulence and wealth of Vienna, learned some more of its history as well as took in some culture and had some awesome food on the way.

We started our sightseeing at the Schonbrunn Palace with the Imperial tour which included walking through the staterooms and private apartments of Franz Joseph and Sisi. It was quite interesting to learn how the Habsburgs used marriage to shore up and expand their expire. The history of this palace and the buildings that have previously stood in this site dates back to the 14th century. However, in 1683 Turkish forces destroyed the previous palace. In 1742-43 the current palace was built and was used as a summer residence from 1745. Work on the building went on into the 1760’s. The gardens out the back of the palace were very also impressive and I imagine they would look even more stunning in spring and summer.

After the palace we then went to the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum or Austrian Museum of Military History. We went here on the recommendation of Ruth and Roger, Roger was particularly taken by the fact you can see the uniform of Franz Ferdinand that he was wearing when he was shot as well as the car he was travelling in still damaged by bullet holes. The museum shows the history of the Habsburg Empire from the beginning of the 16th century until 1918 and Austria’s fate after the dissolution of the monarchy up to the year 1945. Outside the museum there was a medieval market where you could buy all sorts of stuff and all the stall holders were in period clothing which just added to the experience of visiting this museum.

Then it was over to the Belvedere Palace which contains a famous art collection of works ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day. I am not an art officiano but there were a few pieces I liked however I thought some of the paintings at the Military Museum were better. There were markets at the Belvedere as well selling pretzels, ghluwein and other Christmas goodies. We sampled a pretzel which was yummy. I should also mention there was Christmas markets at the Schonbrunn Palace as well.

We then thought we’d check out the Danube River, which is actually the Donaukanal near the city and it’s quote unimpressive. Its an artificial channel or bypass that borders the old quarter of central Vienna and within the city limits the river bed consists of concrete which was installed between 1895 and 1899 to stop devastating floods.

Then it was off to the Christkindlmarkt at Rathausplatz to check out the Christmas markets. The markets were excellent and they sell quality products, I’m sure Amy would love to bring home a full suitcase of Christmas decorations If she could. However I am more interested I the food so I took the opportunity to try a Viennese potato cake, or the kartoffelpuffer which was very nice.

It was time to rest our feet So we headed towards home but on the way we dropped into the Museum Cafe for a coffee, hot chocolate and apple strudel and then we wandered through the markets near our hotel. We actually walked through the markets earlier this morning and loved looking at all the fresh produce including fruit and veg, meat, fish and an array of nuts, sweets and other delicacies. We bought some flavoured nuts for our train trip tomorrow, actually we got a bit carried away and probably have enough nuts for the rest of the trip, Ha!

So tonight we decided to dine at the Bier and Bierli, a pub only 5 minutes from our hotel, and what a great decision this worked out to be. I enjoyed several Schwechater Zwicki red beers and Amy had the best Prosecco’s she has had on our trip so far. Our drinks complemented our meals of veal schnitzel for me and tafelspitz for Amy. The tafelspitz was awesome and was last item of food we wanted to try here so it’s now ticked off our ‘to eat’ list and believe it or not the schnitzel was much better than the one last night, who would have thought we could improve on last night. We finished our time at the pub with a shot of schnapps each, well what else can you do in Vienna. Anyway, if you are Vienna we highly recommend Bier and Bierli, the staff here are also very friendly and Amy was most impressed with how they all worked as a team. This was such a great way to end our time here in Vienna, we had a ball.

Its off to Prague tomorrow and we can’t wait for next instalment of our Central European adventure.

Gute Nacht.