Vienna

Arrived Vienna at breakfast time, plan is a 1 hour coach trip around the city, then 1 hour walking then 1 hour free time. Apparently Vienna was remodelled by FranzJoseph in the mid 19th century with the removal of the city walls and replacing with the “Ring Road”. Not actually circular as both ends start/end at the Danube and serves as the boundary of historic Vienna. Subsequent development around the Ring Road followed, with large public buildings and large houses in various architectural styles, the houses are usually split by floor into apartments with the building owner usually taking the ground floor. The first few pictures are of the Ring Road taken from the coach. Wa alighted at the palace built by Franz-Josef, the palace consists of 4 large “wings” some overlooking what was the gardens, but now a park. Walking through the gardens to the palace we passed the statue of Sissi, FranzJosef’s wife. Nobody knows what this (first palace picture) was built for, now it is part museum and part offices. Moving on into a courtyard the royal apartments ( FranzJosef and Sissi) are where the balcony is. We came back to visit the Augustine church, so picture from inside, otherwise from the outside it is just the end of one the palace buildings, we moved on through the Spanish Riding School Stables into the shopping area passing St Peter’s church on our way to St Stephen’s Cathedral. Compared to Salzburg the “square” around the cathedral is very small, once away from the palace the centre felt compressed and as it was now lunchtime, very crowded.Читать далее