You Get On A Train To Vienna Of Course

What to do when you want some decent Apple Strudel...get on a train to Vienna of course. It was a 2hr 40min train ride and not as spectacular as I had hoped but looking at the massive fields of now dead sunflowers, I bet a few weeks ago it would have been amazing.

Oh Vienna (see what I did there all you 80’s Midge Ure fans)... what a beautiful city, very different to Budapest, brighter and more affluent but with the grandeur of an aristocratic old lady. We visited St Stephen’s Cathedral, he got around did St Stephen and then lunched at the Naschmarkt before wandering up to the Hofburg Palace.

The Palace was incredible and we only had time to visit the apartments but I have never seen so much red and gold all in one building, unfortunately photography wasn’t allowed so I can’t show you, but I am sure you can imagine the opulence afforded by the Hapsburg dynasty in it’s royal palace.

Of course we had to visit the Spanish Riding School, the oldest riding school in the world and the birthplace of classical dressage. I would have loved to see a performance but an evening show is €140 and we were too late to see the morning rehearsals. We did get a tour of the stables and tack rooms and got to see some of the horses (no photo’s here either) and Sushi found it hilarious that one of the men in our group asked why the horses were so fat...after nearly exploding the guide very politely explained that they were just very muscular! These are the performance saddles and each one is handmade from bleached white buckskin to fit the horse. I loved how they were so neatly stored with the rather fancy saddle racks...I just hope China doesn’t start to get any fancy ideas!

Thank you for your lovely response to yesterday’s blip, it obviously affected you as much as it did us.