Vienna: Day 2

Up at a decent hour today for breakfast of meat, cheese, bread and various jams.  There was a little bit of sliced fruit.  Apples and grapes.  One does wonder how Austrians get their daily servings of fruit and vegetables though with such a heavy meat and cheese diet.

Today was a long tour of the Hapsburg residence.  In particular the Hofburg Palace and the Imperial Apartments (Kaiserappartements).  They had audioguides in English which was nice.  Although the Rick Steves guidebook made it seem like you could do this museum plus another 2 or 3, we were tired after 3 hours of walking and listening.  I guess our idea of a vacation includes alot of relaxation time.  Not that it wasn't cool checking out all the royal silver and porcelain collections (and that means collection after numerous collection - seems like one for everyday of the year for umpteen years).  We also got to learn all about the Empress Sisi and toured all the Emperor Franz Josef and Empress Sisi rooms.  One for the Large Salon, another for the Small Salon, and so on... These were certainly "wish-I-were-God" royal rooms.  Throughout the tour we were not allowed to take photo or I'd have snapped a few inside.

After the tour, we had lunch at the Hofburg and relaxed for awhile taking in the sun.  It's been cool here, no shorts and a jacket at night (50-60s), but when the suns shines down it feels good.  Either we were tired or a little jet lagged still so we headed back to the hotel for a nap and to rest up for the evening.

We got all dressed up that night and headed out to see a Classical music concert in and old old room.  It was great.  The acoustics were really good and the players were great as well, although I'm sure listening to it in Vienna added to the ambience of the evening.

Afterwards we had dinner at a Beisl.  These unique Vienesse taverns are all over.  I originally thought they were part of some chain ala-Starbucks but not so.  I must also add that it's nice to have to ask for the bill and not be bothered every second to know if you want more food or drink or are ready to leave.

We wrapped up the evening with dessert at Sacher which is supposed to be the place to have Vienna dessert called the Sacher tort.  Not bad.  Wierd to hear techno in the place.  Reminded me of a martini bar.

We also spent some time trying to figure out where to go next.  We only booked 2 nights in Vienna (or Wien as it's called here) so we needed to figure out where to go next.  We checked into staying an additional night but our hotel has no rooms, at least not one with a bathroom.  Also, we have noticed the terrible smell coming from our bathroom.  The shredder toilett, while environmentally friendly and European, may be a little lacking in American standards.

Gruss Got and Gudent Abend!