Which Palace Today? (Feb 1)

February already? Only 13 days of Europe left!

Our first stop today was Schonbrunn Palace, the only European palace to rival Versailles. It used to be the summer residence of the Hapsburgs....located conveniently 4 miles from their winter home in the city center. We took the Grand Tour and saw 40 rooms. That sounds like a lot, but there are over 1400 rooms in this Palace!!! During WWII only 1 bomb fell on it, and it was a dud. The ceiling has since been repaired and all is well.

We saw there the "Secular and Religious Treasury" that included (Jen is dripping with disbelief and sarcasm and she writes this) a piece of the cross of Christ with a nail hole in it, the nail that pierced Christ's right hand(see photo), a bowl that caught Christ's blood (see photo), and the ever important unicorn horn. Okay, it was neat to learn more about Catholicism and the process a relic goes through to become "Pope certified".
I just had already had enough with relics on this trip. History is neat, relics are not.

For lunch we went to a place recommended to us by-you guessed it-Rick Steves! It was "Restaurant zum Scherer". Andrew got Hieferschwanzl (boiled beef) and Jen got Hungarian Saftgulasch (Gulash) and a pretzel. Cultural, but expensive for lunch. It also seems that indoors in Austria is a smokier place to be than indoors in Italy was.

We planned to go to the Opera House (Photo) for a tour, but then discovered along with some other baffled tourists that it was closed today! There go our plans! Being the flexible tourist we are, we decided to go see the "New Palace" that was never lived in because the empire was defeated before the buildings completion. They had quite a collection of musical instruments and armor. Not really our thing, but fun to see as a back up plan. We went to Demel, a high class sweets shop/bakery in Austria, to sample some Sacher torte. It is dry chocolate cake with a layer of apricot jam in in covered in a hard chocolate coating. Not our thing, but a good cultural experience.

Finally from about 6:30 to 9pm we went to the Kunsthistorisches Museum that the Hapsburgs built as a museum for their art in 1888! It was huge, and "no expense was spared" according to the audioguide. Wow. Our favorite part? The audioguide had a button to push that would remember all your favorite art, and at the end they would print out a small book with the art and the discription/history. Nice! We did it, and now have a great collection of art we were not allowed to take pictures of! :)