Vienna continued! Palaces and Classical Music! June 4, 2016 - Day 10 Part 2

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After our morning tour of Vienna, we went back to the ship for lunch and then Alex and I were ready for our afternoon optional tour to the Schonbrunn Palace. This was the summer home of the Hapsburgs.  In 1569, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II built the original hunting lodge and called it Schonbrunn, which means "beautiful spring". Later, in 1775, Empress Maria Theresa, who was the only female ruler of the Hapsburgs, added to the palace so she would have sweeping city views. 

 We boarded the bus, and off we went! Palace bound!


The palace is built to rival Versailles, and it shows!



We had a few minutes to wait outside while our guide got our tickets so we could wander around a bit taking some pictures outside.










Pretzels are everywhere here in Austria!
Inside there's a good family tree of the Hapsburgs to get an idea of who ruled when and how they all were related.

We had a guided tour through the imperial apartments and the rooms where Maria Theresa lived. However, no photos were allowed inside the palace.  That's a bit disappointing because it was quite lovely!

 After our tour we had a very short amount of free time to visit the gardens outside.  Both Alex and I would have liked much more free time! 


We only had time to visit one of the smaller gardens, but we had great views of the palace from within the garden!
After the palace tour, we went back to the boat again, and had an early briefing for the next day and an early dinner because we had another optional tour!  Tonight we'd be going to a Mozart & Strauss Concert! We went back into Vienna for a concert performed by the Vienna Residence Orchestra.


































The concert was wonderful, the musicians were great and the singers were so talented! There was a bit of humor with the percussionist and the conductor which was fun. This was a fantastic end to our day in Vienna! We all agreed it was a must do!

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