Travels of 2017 -part III - Wien

A new chapter

Third installment in the travelogue of 2017.

After we left Ulm we headed toward Wien. On the way, we stopped for a couple of nights, for a family celebration next to Salzburg, in this pretty place:

Very close to the German border, right after leaving the highway. The anecdote is that Austrian police was in waiting, controlling the "vignette" (highway tax). We had ours, but not everybody had theirs.

One of the best known monument of central Wien is the St Stephen cathedral. Unfortunately it was being renovated and the scaffolding was spoiling a bit the view.

We nevertheless went up in one of the towers that was open for visits and that offered a nice panorama of the whole city

Next day we went to visit the Schönbrunn gardens and zoo (Tiergarten)

One of the main attractions of the Zoo (Tiergarten) are of course the pandas. Pandas have a cool life and will never conquer the world: look at how they send their day (mostly munching on little-nutritious bamboo sprouts - 56% of the time and ... sleeping - 41% of the time)

Here's the typical "panda day"

In the evening, a typical concerto in the "Salle dorée", with Mozart music (accessible and really good)

Back to Schönbrunn the next day, to enjoy the gardens as well as a small section inside (the one for kids)

Dresses and apparel of the Marie-Thérèse era were a hit with the girls

A few more pictures with the cousins

The day ended with an adventure in the labyrinth

On the way home we stopped again in Ulm - pictures of which I've used in the previous episode.

As I have a number of other nice pictures and small movies with animals from the Tiergarten I'll probably write another post on this topic if you are interested (please leave a comment if you'd like to watch some short movies with interesting animals from Schönbrunn Zoo).