Vienna- Day 2

We woke up to more rainy weather this morning, but we headed to Schonbrunn Palace anyway. It was just as incredible as I'd heard. We did the "grand tour" with audio guide so we saw a lot and learned a lot. The gardens were incredible; they reminded me of Versailles.

Schonbrunn Palace:

Palace gardens:

Palace gardens:

We went back to the city center after that and got lunch at the Naschmarkt again.

After lunch we went to the Kunthistoriches museum. It's a really incredible museum with a lot of famous works in it, but I think my favorite part was a special exhibition on a Vermeer painting, The Art of Painting. The exhibit looked at all aspects of it, like all the technical stuff and why certain things were done in certain ways, and I just thought it was really interesting. We spent about 2 and a half hours there; there was a lot to see.

Dome in the entry hall of the Kunthistoriches:

Entry hall:

Cafe:

Next I went to the Vienna Riding School to buy my ticket for tomorrow. There aren't any performances while we're here (I wouldn't be able to afford one anyway), but I'm going to watch the morning exercises (with music) from 10-12 tomorrow, then taking a guided tour of the stables at 3. Im soooooo excited for that! It's going to be awesome.

The rain had stopped (for the first time since we got here) by the time we left the museum so we walked around and saw some more epic buildings.

After that we went back to the cathedral where I took a tour of the catacombs. That was awesome! There's a huge network of catacombs under the city, and a lot of it is just cavernous rooms completely filled with bones and skulls and stuff. Really interesting.

We had a little time to kill so we went to Starbucks, then we got in line for the opera. We got there 2 hours ahead of time for standing room only tickets, which are only 4 euro! The waiting time went fast, and it was totally worth it. The opera house is incredible, and I'd never seen a real opera before so it was really exciting. I didnt mind standing for the 3 hour performance, it was completely worth it. The opera was Rigoletto, by Verdi. Luckily there are little screens for each person (or for a couple people each in the standing galleries) that translate what is being said (since the opera is in Italian), so we knew what was going on. It was really well done, the orchastra was amazing, the theater was incredible. Basically just an awesome experience. Except for the lady that fainted halfway through, she probably didnt have a good time. Standing for a whole opera isnt for everyone... The standing galleries were the best "seats" in the house though. We had a perfect view of the stage- right in the middle and a little bit raised up (not on the next level though, there were a lot of levels) so we could see over the heads of the people sitting on the main floor (the people who paid like 150 euro for their tickets). Awesome.

Hall in the opera house:

One side of the opera hall (the seating levels going up):

Standing room only:

The opera ended at 10 (the rain had started again) and we hadnt eaten dinner so we were starving. And what's open at 10 pm? McDonalds. The funny thing is, our meals at McDonalds cost more than our opera tickets. McDonalds and Starbucks in one day? It's been a long trip...

Tomorrow is the riding school and a few other random things, then on to Munich! The last stop. Wow.