Vienna - little princesses

Schloss Schonbrunn (or Schonbrunn palace) was the destination today. We took the train out to the palace and after queuing for what seemed like hours, I got out tickets and we were off to explore.

On the U Bahn......






















The palace and its grounds are pretty enormous...."Puts Canberra and the Parliament house to shame, said Shane....there are a lot of areas to look at - but the top of our list was the children's museum and the gardens. I feared that we may be kicked out of the palace if we tried to attempt the guided tour with our 2 noisy kids in tow so we didn't bother with that - it was spectacular enough on the outside.

The palace from the front....

From the back....

Looking up from the back of the palace looking up to the "Gloriette"

Looking to the back of the palace from the gardens.









After a brief look at the gardens, we were off to the children's museum. This museum was all about the palace and the imperial family and what it was like to live in those times....

First stop was the craft area where we made some medallions...

Shane getting stuck into it

The finished products.











It was then off to the dress-up area, where Neve got right into character....

Her royal highness....princess Neve

Eloise was uncharacteristically less enthusiastic about the dress-up....refusing to wear the wigs!






















Inside the children's museum they had several rooms set up with different scenes from the imperial era, with different activities for the kids to do. We could have spent all day in here going over everything.....

Once outside we found our way to the maze (or labyrinth)......as well as the labyrinth they also had a few more activities for the kids.

Eloise successfully guided us through the maze...thankfully...

The girls tried to reproduce Michelangelo's "David" in stone but ran out of time....and stone

Eloise got her hips into the swing of it with the hoola hoops

Neve discovered a new skill - plate balancing....so long as she doesn't try it at home!!!!!



















We then decided to tackle the hill up to the gloriette....it looked like there would be a great view from the top.

The fountain at the bottom of the hill.....

The gloriette....I love the name of this....I want one in my backyard!

The view from the very top of the roof - was totally worth the effort getting up the hill.










We made our way back down and headed back to the train for home.....Shane and I had a little laugh at one of the signs on the train...

Apparently you need to vacate the seat for:
- perky pregnant ladies in gloves
- colonel sanders holding a baby
- ladies with extremely large bandaids on their arms
- old ladies in pearl necklaces






Once back in town we stopped for afternoon tea and decided we 'had' to try the traditional Austrian food of Sachetorte (like chocolate cake) and Apfelstrudel (apple strudel).....both were delicious (and entirely fattening - why aren't all Austrians enormously fat??)

All the shops were closed today (even the supermarkets) so we did a bit of window shopping before heading home. So ended another day...not sure what awaits for us tomorrow.....depends on the weather - possibly a ride along the Danube....(to work off the cake!).