Vienna, Austria

After Salzburg, we decided on an ambitious itinerary on our way to Budapest...we headed out at the crack of dawn on a train from Salzburg to Vienna and spent the day there walking the city, getting a fabulous dinner and running back to the train station to barely make it onto the train that would get us into Budapest late that night. I should mention too that we ran with our huge bags, which is seriously impressive given their aforementioned weight, and with all of the hiking, walking, stairs, biking, huffing and puffing we have been doing, we BETTER have some seriously good legs and butts to show for it when we are done...this better not be for nothing! Anyway, our ambitious plan worked out great even though it was a bit crazy.

Vienna is a bigger city and there was so much to see, it was hard to cover in one afternoon but we did a pretty good job. We started at the Schoenbrunn Palace which was amazing...what once started as a hunting grounds for the Hapsburgs, later became their main residence. During that transition, the palace was expanded and redecorated in the Rococo Style, which most of you probably don't care about, but for me (SA), it was SO FUN to see all of the furniture and decor that I just studied in school. It was beautiful and extravagant and I loved every minute of it. The grounds of the palace were made to mimic those at Versailles...they are beautiful and vast and include a labyrinth, a zoo, fountains, and more gardens and flowers than you could imagine. We only had time to hike up to the top of the hill and see the view, but we could have spent hours there.

After the palace, we headed into the city to see the sites...we did a TON of walking and saw all of the beautiful buildings and gardens that we could in the amount of time we had. We ate dinner at a yummy Italian restaurant called Da Capo, on the recommendation of my friend who had just been there (that we ran into in Prague)...fabulous. And then we were off to the train station to make it to Budapest!