Saturday: a dull day in terms of weather, but not raining so we took a trip to Franz Joseph's little place, twenty minutes by tube from the city centre: Schonbrunn Palace. And we were not alone.
We queued through airport style lanes for tickets with a ninety minute delay for entrance to the actual palace. This gave us time to explore the Privy garden, the Orangery, the Maze and to eat a light lunch before we went in.
Everything here is on the grand scale; all drives are wide enough for carriages six abreast. Plenty of room to walk off the inevitable slices of cake.
We followed an audio-guide tour around the rooms of the palace itself. We learned a great deal about the life of Franz Joseph, emperor for sixty-eight years during the nineteenth century. We were on the so-called Grand Tour which included forty rooms - but we passed on the private apartments of Sisi. This was Franz-Joseph's wife, the Empress Elizabeth, a renowned beauty, whose life of dedication to her own image ended in assassination at the age of 63. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that one day her portrait would adorn a deck-chair, so the buyer can effectively sit on her. You saw it here first.
Once out, we walked down to the spectacular cascade and then up the steep hill to the Gloriette, the largest in Europe. Even on a dull day the views were very impressive.
After our evening meal it was off to the Karlskirche again, this time for a performance of Mozart's "Requiem." Could Mozart have heard it performed here himself? Well, no, since it was incomplete at his death, but it was certainly an atmospheric concert venue, scaffolding and all.
We queued through airport style lanes for tickets with a ninety minute delay for entrance to the actual palace. This gave us time to explore the Privy garden, the Orangery, the Maze and to eat a light lunch before we went in.
Everything here is on the grand scale; all drives are wide enough for carriages six abreast. Plenty of room to walk off the inevitable slices of cake.
We followed an audio-guide tour around the rooms of the palace itself. We learned a great deal about the life of Franz Joseph, emperor for sixty-eight years during the nineteenth century. We were on the so-called Grand Tour which included forty rooms - but we passed on the private apartments of Sisi. This was Franz-Joseph's wife, the Empress Elizabeth, a renowned beauty, whose life of dedication to her own image ended in assassination at the age of 63. Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that one day her portrait would adorn a deck-chair, so the buyer can effectively sit on her. You saw it here first.
Once out, we walked down to the spectacular cascade and then up the steep hill to the Gloriette, the largest in Europe. Even on a dull day the views were very impressive.
After our evening meal it was off to the Karlskirche again, this time for a performance of Mozart's "Requiem." Could Mozart have heard it performed here himself? Well, no, since it was incomplete at his death, but it was certainly an atmospheric concert venue, scaffolding and all.
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1 comment:
Ha the poor Empress Elizabeth has become a butt of a joke! I just couldn't pass this one up!
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