Vienna - Saturday and Sunday (Naschmarkt, Schoenbrun)

Saturday 30 June 2018

As the farmers and antique markets were on on Saturday mornings, I'd been told, I decided to go and have a look.  Well, they must have been one of the biggest markets that I have ever come across.  The only drawback was the groups of tourists walking behind those guides that hold up a flag or umbrella to be followed.  Oh, how I would hate to be in a group like that.  It made wandering around quite unpleasant as well, so in the end I walked to the city.

Just a small selection of the wares.  I loved the smell of all the exotic spices.

Translates into:
My family was in Vienna and all they brought was this crap bag....

For the cheese lovers

Secession Museum (on the way to town)

I needed some cash and went to a bank first.  And what do you do with cash when you've got it? Of course, it's there to spend, so I went to the Sacher outdoor restaurant and had an espresso with Sacher torte and watched the world go by. ;-)

It's a hard life, but someone has to do it...

On my way back I concentrated on all the beautiful decorations and facades of the buildings.  They are still beautiful in the inner city, but when you walk the outer ring many of those impressive buildings have been defaced by graffiti.

And yes, Maccas is everywhere...

Graffiti even on top of the roof!

After this walk I spent at least an hour relaxing and watching people near the fountain at the end of the street before I made my way home.  In the afternoon I spent some time on the computer updating my blog and other things and late at night (well, 9pm is late fore me ;-)) I walked to the streets near Naschmarkt as there was supposed to be music, but all it was was streets crammed with tables and chairs for dinner or drinks and a few bands and/or dj's playing music, but it was more a cacophony of sounds, so I kept walking for an hour to do a bit of sightseeing late at night on foot.  I had had my dinner anyway and sitting down for a glass of wine on your own is not something I enjoy.  At least, not with hundreds of people around me...

Sunday 1 July 2018

From day one it was my plan to visit Schloss Schoenbrunn again and when I knew I would have the use of a bike I wanted to make it a bike ride.  Well, today was the day.  Sunny, just a few clouds, and not too hot.  Unfortunately Google Maps didn't quite get the bike tracks right, so the ride towards Schoenbrunn was 9.8km and took me over an hour because I kept losing sight of the bike tracks, while on the way back the trip was only 5.2km long and I did it in 33 minutes!  No harm done, I wanted a bike ride and I got it...

Because I had a very early breakfast I looked for a restaurant first and sat down for a cup of coffee and later lunch.  Again I enjoyed soup with liver dumplings and had bratwurst and chips and salad for mains.

After that I was ready to tackle the long hike to the top of the palace park.  It's climbing for most of its length.  When I finally arrived at the building, called the Gloriette I sat down for a while and enjoyed the views.  I cannot remember if we had to pay to take the lift to the top of the building (for even better views), but now we had to and since I had been up there before I didn't see the need to spend money on it.  I saved if for an icecream later.... :-)

The gardens were kept well compared with those of Belvedere

Below I will place a few of the pictures I took when I visited Schoenbrunn with Frank in 2011:

There were squirrels then

On top of the Gloriette

Back then I had company...