Today was a bit of a rest day. We slept in a bit, then came up with our plans for a slightly earlier departure from Vienna. Around 10am we headed out to the Imperial Furntiure collection (included in our Sisi ticket), which was extensive. The museum really highlighted a) how much stuff the Habsburgs had (seriously… who needs 1,000 candeloboras) and b) what a pain it must have been back in the day to move said stuff from palace to palace… it’s not like you just rent a truck from UHaul… nonetheless, a nice way to spend 2 hours on a dreary and cold day.
We then came back to the hotel, had a lunch of bread, salami, and the world’s foulest smelling cheese (which was quickly disposed of… had the true nature of the contents been known, we wouldn’t have bought it).
We then made our way to Belvedere palace, which was quite beautiful in the snowy/ice covering that had been coming down. We didn’t go in… but wandering the grounds, and eating fried spaetzle with bacon and onions at the Christmas market out front was quite a highlight.
We then had the bright idea to visit a Heurige (The Vienesse have wine gardens instead of the Germans’ beer gardens), but after riding around on the subways/streetcars for a while decided we’d call it a night and instead buy a $3 bottle of Austrian wine at the supermarket… (suits our tastes…)
JD went out with Tucker to have a farewell beer. I stayed in and packed our bags for our onward journey to Salzburg. Bis bald!
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