Vienna Zoo Photos
Friday night: hideously long bus journey to Heathrow straight after work. Saw the new Terminal 5 – lots of shops and decent places to eat. Had sushi. Mysteriously had a business class seat on the plane! Told the guy next to me we must have someone really skinny sitting in between us (business class seat dividers squish the middle seat – German / Austrian guy didn’t get it and decided to give me a speech on business class seats). Plane sat on the tarmac for a good half hour. As we took off, saw a big queue of planes, about 10 waiting to take off as well. Why does British Airways always serve crappy sandwiches? Landed 2 hours later. Kerri (my cousin) was also delayed. Caught a taxi to the hotel. Oohed and ahhed at the pretty buildings on the way. Very tired and very late, we went to bed not long after checking into the hotel.
Saturday: huge insane buffet breakfast. Best bacon I’ve ever eaten – wafer thin. And smoked salmon *drool*. Time to get out, discover Vienna and get lost. And we did. However, we did see a cute street market that looked like an old person’s house had been emptied – lots of old tins, prints, photos, frames, clothes.. After our “diversion” on a few trams, trains etc, we finally ended up back at the Museum Quarter, and wandered around some grand and gorgeous buildings and parks. Eventually we ended up at the Belevedere Palace, walked through the gorgeous grounds and saw the one thing – the entire reason why I came to Vienna. To see Gustav Klimt’s painting, “The Kiss”. I stared at it for so long. To see it up close was so different to seeing it in books. You could see the texture, the real colours, the strokes. Not only was there gold, but also silver used in the painting. I kept coming back after looking at the other paintings to see it over and over.We then hired some bikes and peddled around Vienna along the parks and riverbank. SO much better and faster than pounding the pavement. Highly recommend it, and loads of bike paths. There’s just sooo many buildings to see. Eventually we went back to the hotel, kicked our feet up, had a couple of drinks and then went upstairs to get ready for the opera. The opera house was stunning. We had champagne to celebrate and our own box on the balcony. Choosing seats is quite hard and also, thank GOD – we had little screens that translated what they were singing into English. Other seats didn’t have that. The opera singers were amazing. No microphones whatsoever – their voices filled the vast, tall area. Afterwards, we went out for a late bite to eat and slept very well that night.
Sunday: the Spanish Riding School. Basically, very well trained white horses, who dance, do ballet and jump around lots to music. Beautiful horses. Enjoyed the second half where they did the ballet, dancing and jumping the most. Afterwards, we went to the Vienna Zoo.. OMG: highlights: mum and dad tiger with 2 baby tiger cubs. 1 leopard and 2 black jaguars all climbing over each other like best buddies and the panda, including the baby panda bear. Great zoo - they even had a delicous restaurant there too! We had dinner and wine there, headed back to Central Vienna on the Underground and found a mexican bar and downed a jug of strawberry marguriatas.
Monday: Kerri had to fly home very early that morning, which left me to my own resources for the day. So after a hearty baconny breakfast, I headed to the Museum Quarter to the Leopold Museum and saw more Klimt paintings and other Austrian art. I then hired a bike and peddled over to Augarten - a huge park. Ended up at Stephenplatz - big Notre Dame like Cathedral, had a bit of retail therapy, found a gorgeous old cafe where you can see the pastry chefs making everything from scratch and had the most insane delicious iced chocolate EVER. Headed back to the hotel, picked up my bags and made way for the airport. Had another amazing seat on the plane - emergency exit row, loads of leg room, an almost empty plane and no one sitting next to me - yay!
So, thanks to my cuz Kerri for a wonderful weekend together - I had such a great time :) xoxo
