Vienna ~ Day 2

We took the Underground train to visit the  Schonbrunn Palace  the next day.  The palace and the palace grounds were huge as you can see and naturally took us many hours to walk around.  We went on a conducted tour of the palace interior and they have different packages.  We only took the basic one which cost us 14.90 Euro per person and then after the tour we wandered on our own.

Entrance to Schonbrunn Palace.

The grand facade of Schonbrunn Palace.

After the tour, if you are too tired to walk, you can hop on to this cute little choo-choo train to different stops (depending on which package you have paid for).

There were a lot of Mandarin ducks swimming freely in the cold waters.

A beautiful fountain at the back of the palace grounds.

This is the highest 'peak' at the back of the palace overlooking a beautiful garden.

Entrance to the  Imperial Zoo  which is the oldest in the world within the palace grounds.  We left the palace and went back to the city to have a bite before proceeding to Palais Palffy for the Mozart and Strauss concert.

Wolfang Amadeus Mozart ~ a memorial in the form of a statue of the great composer in the Burggarten, near Neue Burg in downtown Vienna.

Mozart's statue surrounded by bedding plants laid in the form of a musical 'Clef'!  So cute and pretty!

We went to this Palais Palffy for the Mozart and Strauss concert.  Our ticket was 36 Euro per head and the concert started promptly at 8.00 pm.
There was a long queue of tourists and I would say that it was not well organised as in ushering us to the seats.  We were only told to leave our coats, jackets, knapsacks at the cloak room at the last minute, as this room (where Mozart played before), was quite small and it was heated.

Various Mozart pieces were played, then there was a tenor and a soprano who belted out some songs in German (which unfortunately we don't understand).  But both the orchestra and singers were very, very good.  After the 15 min. intermission, they played Johann Strauss's waltzes and they were good as well.

A couple performing ballet in one of Johann Strauss's waltzes.  We really enjoyed the concert and there was encore and encore from the audience!
The concert ended around 10.30 pm and off we strove off to look for something to warm our stomachs as it was drizzling and we were all feeling pretty cold.

Melker Stiftskeller ~ an interesting place, you'll have to walk down and down to the cellar.  It's part of the Melkerhof complex, originally the storehouse for wines from the Melk Abbey in the Danube Valley.

2 types of Austrian Beer recommended by the waiter

Fried fillet of plaice with potato salad.

Beef stew ~ melker stiftskeller with bread dumpling.

Their signature crispy roasted pork knuckle with dumpling, warm cabbage (very finely shredded and a bit sourish)  and horseradish.

I like this pancake the best .... Emperor's Pancakes ~ Kaiserschmarren ........  thick with raisins, served with raspberry sauce.  Overall, the food was alright except that we found that they were a little bit salty.

More pictures and food galore coming up ............ next!