Like most families, Ian and Vanessa enjoy travelling together. Since retiring in 2019 we started this blog to allow people to follow our journeys. Hopefully you find the locations we visit of interest.
All packed and with the bags left in the office, we headed off for our few last hours in Vienna. Back on the tram and making the most of our 72 hour ticket (which was well worth the expense) we head off south to Schloss Belvedere (Belvedere Palace).
Große Bassin view
Garden and fountain view
Vanessa wanted to look at St Anne’s church which had another colourful décor. The church was just behind the Opera House which we didn’t photograph before due to the rain. But today it was staying dry, so we grabbed a few images. You can only go inside as part of a booked tour, so we had to make do with the exterior.
Now off to Annakirche (St Anne’s), but unfortunately there was a service in progress, so we went next door for a coffee and shared cake and waited for the church to empty.
Returning back to collect our bags, we passed the Spanish Riding School building and stables…
…and our last photo of the holiday was the performing arts theatre Burgtheater. The trip back to the airport was very straightforward taking the U2 to Praterstern and changing to the S7 out to the airport. Eventually arriving home at 2030 to spend a few hours preparing the motorhome for our next trip tomorrow.
Another damp day, but this time colder than yesterday, so we wrapped up well. We still had a leisurely start and headed off to the Spanish Riding School for our booked performance. Unfortunately they didn’t allow any photography, so nothing to show. However, we were unimpressed by the whole thing with three 10 minute routines and 5 minutes of introduction between each. Each routine was very repetitive, so we were pleased we didn’t book for the longer performance on the Sunday. Maybe ballet would have been more exciting (did I really think that?).
After this we headed back to our usual lunch venue at Nordsee, taking this image on the way which is the exterior to the Riding School (just to the left out of view).
We then headed east down the narrowest streets to find some of the older parts of the city, passing some standout building on route. Eventually we found another unattractive exterior of an old church, but the inside was magnificent.
The images below are from the Jesuitenkirche (Jesuit Church). It always seems to be the case that the old unkept church exteriors appear to have the best looking interiors.
Whilst I was taking pictures I think Vanessa sat down at a pew for a quick prayer or two. (She would need more than that to get back into his good books). Afterwards we carried on wandering through the streets when she suddenly realised she had lost her phone in the church. I could track it’s location and it was still inside, so we dashed back for it. It wasn’t where she thought she’d put it down and a kind person told her where he had seen it. No missed calls from the almighty though – what did she expect! So we carried on with our trek and came across the other end of a passage that we photographed yesterday, followed by another old church.
About time for a coffee and cake (at an establishment that takes credit card this time). After this, we headed out towards the University Campus but with a small detour to look at the inside of the Russian Church we visited yesterday. Unfortunately photos weren’t allow, but that didn’t matter as the inside was very dull. So onto the university and the Academic Department Building – why you may ask? I saw this building in LocationScout which I’ve already mentioned and was amazed with the architecture…
This wasn’t the only impressive site…
The day was drawing to a close and in the distance we could see the amusement park lighting up in the clouds, so we headed off for a quick look.
Trying our hand at ICM (in camera movement) I had these few shots. I would have preferred a darker sky, but to be honest we were getting quite cold by now, so kept our stint in the park to just 30 minutes.
Headed back to our apartment for our evening meal. Tomorrow being our last day in Vienna, but we hope to see a few more locations before we need to leave for the airport.
Bateson's Travel log 