Since it was our last full day in Vienna we thought we’d go do something a little more ambitious, so we took a day trip out to see Schonbrunn palace. It is a large palace outside of central Vienna, modeled after the Versailles palace in Paris. It is a big tourist draw, so we got up pretty early. These early rises are the key to sightseeing success, but by then we were having trouble rolling out of bed at 6 am.
We took a short walk to the nearest train station, and then caught a regular train out of town to get to the castle. Buying tickets on the trains in Vienna was a little strange – you bought them from a machine, but there was no ticket gate anywhere, and I never saw anyone checking tickets. How do they keep people honest, I wonder?
Once we arrived at the palace we went to get in line for tickets. The ticket hall was a huge building, with pylons to manage big crowds of people. When we arrived there were only five people in line, so no sweat. Later when we left we saw maybe five hundred people in line. Once we had tickets we walked to the entry gate, which was a turnstile with a barcode scanner. It only turned if the time on your ticket was the same or later than the time above the turnstile. It was a good way to control crowds and meter a lot people into a relatively narrow space, so I was impressed. We had to wait only five minutes or so before our time came up, so during our wait we could watch the system in action. People who had bought tickets after us marched up and couldn’t understand why they couldn’t get in. The look of exasperation on the staff manning the entrance told the story – the system wasn’t so obvious to a lot of people and even this early in the day the staff looked pissed off explaining the same thing over and over.
The Palace of Versailles is a very dramatic and luxurious building, and it was one of the highlights of our last trip to Paris. Even though this palace in Vienna was based on the one in Versailles, it couldn’t really compare. It was plenty beautiful, and I really enjoyed walking through and trying to imagine the function of each room, but it didn’t leave me breathless. Kuniko kind of felt the same way, I think. We moved through pretty quickly, and we were aided by the “no photos” rule, so it was easy to step around people and keep our pace.
Much more interesting were the grounds behind the castle. We spent time walking through the pathways between trees, discovering fountains, statues and obelisks in unexpected places. A nice older lady volunteer told us about some sights worth visiting, so we had some insider information to help us out, too. There weren’t so many people around, so it was a nice leisurely stroll.
Standing far behind the palace, on the crest of a rising hill, was a building that looked like sort of a gate. It was built to dramatically show the extent of the gardens to people within the palace, and it housed a restaurant. We were thinking some sparkling wine with a view of the grounds sounded like just the thing, so we started walking uphill. It was a lot steeper (and farther) than it looked, however, and in the sun we really started to get hot. My head bandage was getting a little sweaty, too – that can’t be good.
Fortunately once we arrived and went inside we found it well worth the effort. We found a table on the back terrace, passing a buffet of sweets and live classical music being played. This place was high class all the way. We ordered our Prosecco, added a plate of cheese to the tally and some water (because we were paying careful attention to hydration). The cheese was a real hit – there were some great selections in there, and we had another glass of sparkling to make sure the balance was right.
The crowd here was on the rich side – you could tell they were enjoying being conspicuously spendy. In a somewhat strange contrast, just beyond the tables was a hand water pump, and now and then joggers who had entered the gardens for exercise would stop and pump vigorously and then drink straight out of the pump in a somewhat sloppy manner. We are sipping our sparkling wine and they are guzzling water like thirsty horses – I love it!
We walked back down past the Neptune fountain and were able to find the garden labyrinth. The hedge maze was actually three different mazes of varying height and difficulty. We turned into the first one we saw and figured we’d get through it in just a few minutes. Not so fast – it was more difficult than it looked. We walked through feeling a little like we were in a movie or on Survivor. Lots of wrong turns, and lots of dead ends. The goal was an elevated platform in the middle of the maze, and we could see people climb the steps and beat the maze now and then but it was surprisingly tough for us to figure out. At one point a young girl zoomed past us and I jokingly asked her for help, but she just smirked at me and moved on. Later we finally found the platform at the end, and we could look down on everyone else and feel suitably superior. I saw the young girl still looking, and she looked up and we locked eyes. Ha, ha – we beat you!
The labyrinth was a highlight, but it was warming up and we figured it was time to get going. On our way out buses were unloading hordes of tourists and the line for tickets was outrageous. The train platform was crammed with people coming in, and it felt good to catch a train out of there having missed most of the madness.
Back in central Vienna things were awfully quiet. We walked the streets looking for a grocery store or drug store that was open, but we had absolutely no luck. Finally by chance we found an open minimarket (Spar), but it was so packed with people we decided to move on. In the end we resorted to asking our hotel clerk about places that were open, and she informed us that it was a national holiday and almost everything was closed. I was looking for antiseptic cream for my head wound, so she described a drug store that was “always open” uptown. We set out at once to find it.
It was quite a walk to get there, and when we found the correct drug store the place was dark and the door was locked. There was a guy waiting by the intercom, and I figured he was trying to get into an apartment above the drug store. I was a little disappointed because we walked a long way on tired feet to get some medical goods, and came up empty. Just to double check we went into a completely different hotel nearby, pretended to be their guests, and asked for a drug store. The lady said that she thought the drug store was indeed open, and then she called it right in front of me and confirmed with the staff that they were open. What the hell? We went back out there, and then we realized that the store was closed and locked, but you could tell an employee inside what you wanted through the window and intercom, and he’d sell it to you through a little drawer built into the wall. I presented my Google Translate app to show him I wanted antiseptic cream, and he came right back with two options. I couldn’t understand what he said, so I picked the one on the right and gave him five euros for his troubles. Easy!
Worried that the national holiday might mean that the souvenir shop that we had planned on visiting for our shopping might closed, we took a train to give our feet a rest and found that it was indeed open and doing brisk trade in the touristy part of town. We went nuts buying stuff for all our students and coworkers, and we might have overbought a little because we were very relieved that it was open.
Our last stop for the night was back at the only minimarket that we could find that was open. Inside it felt slightly like a riot – a sense of desperation in the air. Disaster? Food rationing? No, just a national holiday in Vienna. We chose a variety of light foods – some cheese, a few slices of sausage, some veggie salads, and a bottle of Wachau wine and some cold beers. It took a long time to get through the check out line, but we brought back our haul to the hotel, and had a casual dinner in our hotel room while we packed and rested our feet. It was nice to reset our tastebuds after all the heavy foods we’ve eaten during dinners this trip!
We were leaving the next day on a fairly early train to Prague, so we wanted to get some extra sleep and rest before our next travel day. Hopefully the train ride would be less eventful than the last one!
