Graduation Trip Day 4: Vienna, Austria

July 28^th 2013

(Remember that Jeff's comments are in red, Josie's in black. There are also links that you can click on to see more information and pictures. They are in red and are underlined when you put the mouse on them).

            After the long day of walking yesterday, we slept in.

            Then we left Prague and went back to Vienna. This time, we went to see the palaces. First was Belvedere. Very cool looking. We didn’t go inside because it was Sunday and we weren’t sure if we had parked in a proper spot.

It took a few times... 

At least half of this picture looks good...

We love windmills! It reminds us of Idaho Falls.

The first stop was Belvedere Palace. It's gorgeous, but we didn't end up going in because we didn't want to buy tickets and we were worried about our car getting towed or something. It's a pretty place.

We first walked to the front gate and around the front pond.

We walked around behind and saw the long decorated gardens leading down the hill. It was sooo hot that we decided that pictures would suffice without walking all through it.

Next we went to find Schonbrunn Palace. It took forever to find parking, we didn’t have any Euros, couldn’t buy food because the shop wouldn’t take visa, and it was still incredibly hot. However, we both found our good attitudes and walked through the gardens of Shonbrunn. I had been there before with Jessica on our Europe Tour. The grounds are huge and it was very pretty. But we talked about what we would do if we had land and money like that:) My face was red—not because I was sunburned.

The main palace is shown below. 

Behind the palace are the biggest gardens I have ever seen. Statues line the garden on each side and flowers are grouped together to make designs in the grass. The whole thing is probably a 1/4 mile long. Also, as part of the gardens is a zoo, the oldest zoo in the world.  

At the end of the gardens, you come to a hill with a zig-zagged route up to the Gloriette on the hill. 

From here, you have a wonderful panorama of Vienna and also of the whole Palace and gardens.

            We left for home after getting food and gas. I read and finished “Leadership and Self-Deception” one of Jeff’s books. I hope he enjoyed listening to me read. It was a very enlightening book. Poor Jeff has done too much driving; but he plans excellent surprise trips for his “li'l wifey.”