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| Erin's Journal for 9-30-02 For our last full day in Vienna, we took it easy in the morning and checked on rail times for Salzburg in the morning. Then we U-Bahned to a castle on the outskirts of town, where Napoleon once lived while in possession of the city, as well as other local royals. This palace, Schloss Schonbrunn, looked pretty ordinary from the front. We'd considered attending a Mozart concert that happened to be located in one of the long corridors here, but had decided against it in favor of something closer in to town. Well once we got around to the back of the palace, we realized its true beauty. The gardens are enormous and gorgeous! They take up so much space and offer so many things to see that it was where we spent most of our early afternoon. There was a huge parade ground with gardens that clearly occupied an army of gardeners full time, a wonderful fountain of Neptune that reminded me of Rome's Trevi Fountain, steep hillside lawns that were reminiscent of the palace in Florence we'd seen, and an awesome view from the top of the Vienna skyline. Then upon descent into the wooded side paths, we passed the zoo, the botanical gardens with all types of trees and bushes (plus some strange-looking sharp-eared squirrels), a palm greenhouse, a Japanese garden, and a butterfly house! After all this, we needed a meal, and walked across the street to a small outdoor cafe. We had little quiches and hot drinks as the weather was sunny but crisp, and afterward railed up to the city's permanent amusement park. There were several ferris wheels (one monumental one!), plus rides of every variety and casinos & food booths. We walked around there for a couple of hours, stopping to watch the few people there enjoying rides. It's off season and many rides were closed, but we did get to see one daredevil on slick track cars racing about with his helmet. After that we watched the dying sunlight from a city park as local dogs played around us, then caught the U-Bahn back to the center. We sought out our good restaurant of a couple of nights before, and repeated our good meal. Then we took a quiet evening in the room of reading before our trip to Salzburg tomorrow. |
| The samples of all sorts of architecture abound in Vienna. This Gothic cathedral is right down the street from the Rathaus |