Vienna

Strauss monument in the Stadtpark

Vienna is stunning.  Big cities are not normally my go but you can't help but be impressed by the grandeur of the place.  Everywhere you look it is just one fantastic building after the next, manicured gardens, pedestrian malls, palaces and museums. You would need a year to even scratch the surface of this place so with that in mind our first port of call today was an outdoor ice skating rink.

Our kids have been twice before today and yet you would think they had grown up on the ice.  Not because they are good at it (they're rubbish) but because they are singularly obsessed with asking us to take them at every opportunity. 

Ice skating - again

Caving in to the pressure and to get them off our case (and it is their holiday too) we exited the centre of town and made our way to the ice rink.  

First stop though was a quick picture in front of a Johann Strauss monument in a park called the Stadtpark.   I'd Skyped Mum & Dad that morning and Dad told me that as a 5 year old I was there and had a photo taken in front of the monument so it'd be neat if I got another years later.  Ticked that box and we walked on to the ice skating rink.

St Charles Church

Learning ice skating is a little more sophisticated in Austria than in Slovenia so instead of pushing around chairs on the ice to help them keep their balance they pushed penguins instead.  After a while with the penguins and with their confidence up they bade farewell to their feathered friends, exited the learners area and went onto the main rink to cut some laps.

Eventually I persuaded the boys to leave the ice and we wandered on through the city roughly following a walking tour that was on a brochure we had.

We stopped at St Charles church which was built after a plague had run it's course in Vienna and was a monument to the patron saint and revered plague healer Charles Borromeo.  

Mozart monument

God does indeed move in mysterious ways.  First he knocks off thousands of women, children, the infirm, the elderly and just general passers-by with plague and pestilence and then he sends a bloke (or a dead bloke in this case) to clean up the mess to be hailed a hero afterwards.  

Moving on from massive monuments we walked towards the National Library and found a small monument to Mozart who first visited Vienna when he was 6 years old to play for the then Empress Maria Theresia.  Six years old, composing music and playing violin concertos for royalty.  Not a bad effort for a little fellow.  (And we can't get our kids to eat with a bloody knife and fork!)

Austrian Parliament House

Athena Fountain - Athena with Goddess Nike
in her right hand, spear in the left etc etc

We caught the tram around the Ringstrasse to the Austrian Parliament building.  The style of the building was heavily influenced by Roman and Greek architecture and was completed in 1883.

After that we found ourselves in front of the Austrian City Hall (Rathaus) which was another magnificent building and right in front home of the largest Christmas markets in Vienna. 

Spent some money there and then we caught the train home.

Vienna Rathaus - City hall