We had breakfast of belegtes Brot, which I loosely translate as "bread with stuff on it." Germanic peoples love breakfast of bread, butter, and cold cuts, and it's something I love, as well.
Our first visit was to Schloss Schönbrunn, the Austrian equivalent of the Palace of Versailles. It's a little outside of town, just like Versailles, and it, too, started out as a little hunting lodge and exploded into a sprawling palace with gorgeously maintained grounds.
The Habsburgs lived here until the death of Franz Joseph, who was born there, lived there, and died there. The palace is beautiful, of course, and the grounds are sprawling and impressive.
I brought my knitting, of course, and we were happy to sit for a while watching all the tourists, joggers, etc. We brought our Billa lunch of sandwiches, apples, and cookies.
I have to say, I was more impressed this time than last. Maybe the weather was better and I enjoyed the gardens more, or maybe I wasn't expecting it to actually BE Versailles this time.
We got back into town and visited the other Habsburg residence, the Hofburg. A sprawling city palace, it contains the library, the former royal apartments, and the royal china & silver collection.
Of course, our first stop was the library (Hofbibliothek). I remembered it being a soaring Baroque masterpiece, and of course, it did not disappoint. I'm a little surprised it wasn't free, but whatever, I'm happy to support any library, anywhere!
Next was the Sisi Museum, where we learned all about Empress Elisabeth of Austria. I don't remember there being such a branding push about Sisi the last time I was in Vienna, and it seemed to me that she has been overly romanticized. She was the love of Franz Joseph, but seemed like she was lukewarm-ish about the emperor and actively hated being empress. If she hadn't been assassinated, I think she'd be remembered as a Scarlett O'Hara-type figure.
We also got to drool over the imperial china, glassware, and silver. Here's a sample place setting with the official napkin fold of the monarchy:
Dave was a little grumpy about that museum because he's not that into the pretty stuff, and he also had turned his ankle on the stairs at the Hofbibliothek. So I enjoyed the flatware by myself, then we headed back to the hotel to relax a bit.
We weren't terribly hungry for dinner, so we just had another ice cream cone at Zanoni & Zanoni (this became a daily requirement) and snacked a bit at the hotel with a sour beer we bought at Lichtenthaler the night before.
Now comes the only touristy thing I did in Vienna that I regret, which is the Sachertorte at Hotel Sacher. A Sachertorte is an incredibly dense chocolate cake with apricot filling (questionable) and a hard chocolate shell. I was not terribly impressed with that or the apple strudel we tried, so I wish we hadn't done that and had gone for beers at another brewery instead. Oh well, you live and you learn.
We had tickets to Vienna State Opera to see the Barber of Seville, a very enjoyable and humorous opera compared to others I've seen, which tend toward the tragic. I had seen La Traviata at the Vienna State Opera when I was a student, but we had the ten euro tickets that make you stand at the back of the theater. This time, we had actual seats, so you can see how I've come up in the world.
Outside the opera house was a pink bunny satirizing the Albrecht Dürer original drawing in the Albertina Museum (which I visited a few days later). He is cute!
The opera was great, and I didn't even fall asleep this time. After the show, we had the luxury of walking home through a beautiful Vienna night to our hotel.
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