Vienna

Back in college, a couple of friends and I talked some guy friends into taking a ballroom dance class with us, that I had pretty much forgotten all about until tonight when I was trying to remember our trip to Vienna.  In the class, we learned the Viennese waltz, and my memories of that dance are mostly being dizzy and breathless, which is a little how I remember our trip to Vienna.  On most of our previous European stopovers, and actually travels originating from Dubai, we have been rained on, a lot.  Salzburg was warm, but pleasant, but Vienna was a whole "new" experience for us.  It was actually HOT!  Thankfully, on our first day, we were in a well shaded place for quite awhile. 

This cool Russian Orthodox church was right outside our hotel, so it started off our days with some nice ambiance.  Will waited all summer for our first day in Vienna - and a visit to Tiergarten Schonbrunn, the oldest zoo in Europe. 

 It won the prize (if anyone were offering one) as the best zoo, in comparison to Amsterdam and Paris, and we saw pandas and hippos and penguins and walruses, and lions and monkeys and cheetahs and elephants, koalas and even some wolves. (and you're welcome for not including pictures of them all...)

 This zoo was also attached to a palace (the Hellbrun Palace in Salzburg had a zoo too, but we skipped it.), and once we ventured out of the shaded walkways to this open courtyard, we really felt the heat!  Our afternoon that day consisted of Nate returning our rental car to the airport while the kids and I relaxed at the hotel and tried out the pool there.  It was pretty small, indoors, and just a lap pool so it wasn't kid friendly at all, but we sat on the side and let the animals go swimming.  Finley got really brave and just kept walking off the edge into the water, giggling madly.  We were also really lucky there because our room overlooked the grassy "sunning area", which as I looked out the window, I realized that oh, we are in Europe where people sunbathe topless...  Lovely.

St. Stephen's Cathedral - Nate ventured in solo for a few pics.  Most of what we saw in Vienna was not super thrilling for the kids so we took it at a fast clip.

A cool looking building that may or may not be the Hofburg Vienna?  It looked impressive and photo worthy.  Don't think by my lack of memory that I didn't appreciate the opportunity to see it... but I have a hard time feeling the love when I am feeling so sweaty.

The Ankeruhr Vienna clock - every day at noon, you can hear a (loonnngg) song and see a parade of historical Viennese figures passing through.  It was impressive and even kept the kids' interest for about half the time - well that and a package of fruit snacks for each of them:)

With our cool guidebook from the school library (which has served us well since we moved here, and I think the books like us too, since no one else has checked them out for years!), we found this ancient church in the oldest part of the city, surrounded by cool pubs where we had lunch and enjoyed sitting in the shadow of history. 

One of the highlights of the trip for me was the clock museum - yep a whole museum dedicated to one of my favorite things.  The guards, for lack of a better description, were quite stressed the whole time we were there though, thanks to the antics of Will and Finley... they could not keep their hands off the cool old levers and pulleys and whatnot.

And in case you didn't know, there was a whole artistic period when you didn't buy a clock, you bought a painting with a tiny clock inside it - so funny! 

Our faces kind of say it all here - it was hot, parents were frustrated, guards were hovering, kids were tired, trip was winding down and everyone was ready to go swimming! 

I really miss my clock wall... and I haven't bought any cool clocks on my travels yet - I'm not really into the cuckoo clocks and that's what we found on this trip, or cheesy tourist clocks in other European cities.

The horse drawn carriages were everywhere in Salzburg and Vienna, and we debated taking a ride, but in Salzburg it was more than we wanted to spend, and Vienna was even more, so we just enjoyed hearing them clip clop along the cobblestones, and smelling their horsey smell all over town.