Day 5 - Wein, Oostreich

Vienna is beautiful. We have had an amazing day today. I will definitely want to come back here someday and also spend some time in other areas of Austria.

This morning we returned to the Schonbrunn palace and did an audio guide tour. We were there early enough to beat the hoards of tourists which was great. We learned a lot about Austria's history and saw some beautiful rooms. We were not allowed to take photos but that was probably for the best because we would have spent all day there! We bought a book with photos of all the rooms instead.

We then explored the gardens which had some beautiful fountains. We also walked up a hill in the garden and on the top of the hill was the Gloriette - basically a big archway type structure.

We caught a tram back to town and visited a beautiful church which had its roof covered in a mosaic pattern - St Stephan's. The area around the church had many high end shops and eateries, with no cars allowed.

We had weiner hotdogs from a street vender for lunch - very cheap!

In the afternoon we rejoined the group for a tour of a schnaps distillery and museum. The tour was good but short and did not tell us about the process of distilling alcohol. We were able to try shots, I had gold leaf brandy, and chilli brandy (HOT!!) and Stef had hazelnut and banana-choc liqueur.

In the evening we explored central Vienna and visited as many of the beautiful buildings as we could before dark. For dinner we stopped at a pub-type restaurant on a side street and had more schnitzel (Stef had traditional, I had turkey cordon bleu) this was even better than last night! We were joined in our explorations by Libby, who is also on our tour. She was a lot of fun!

Tomorrow we are up bright and early again to head to Bratislavia, in Slovakia and then later on to Budapest, Hungary.