Breakfast issues meant we got off to a later start than planned, eventually meeting up with Michelle just before 10am. 
 
We trained to Schonbrunn (very easy) and spent the rest of the day there . Sisi fast track tickets were worth every penny as we didn't have to line up for tickets or for entry to the palace.

 Sisi, the "poster child" Empress was a very beautiful woman, and she knew it! Her hair reached to her ankles and 2-3hrs were spent on it each day. Sounds like the Emperor was absolutely besotted with her, but it seems this was not reciprocated. One of her diary entries lamented the fact that she was "sold" into marriage at 15 and made a vow that she didn't really understand and then spent the next 30 years basically unhappy. Oh dear. Explains why she traveled so much!

The actual palace itself was very grand with rooms coming out your whoo ha, all embellished with gold leaf, frescos, tapestries, crystal mirrors and richly upholstered furniture.

After our palace tour we had a look around the expansive gardens. Boggles the mind to think how many people would have been required to maintain it before power mowers and hedge trimmers . Jeff stopped to take a look at the Marionette museum then sprinted up to the top the Gloriette, a fancy looking building at the top of a hill looking down over the gardens towards the palace.

Michelle & I saw a cute red squirrel bounding around the gardens. Awwww. And Bev had fun in the souvenir shop.

After lunch in the cafe (part of the same chain as lunch yesterday though we didn't know it) Michelle headed back into town for a tour of the St Stephensdom catacombs and we (after much deliberation ...) decided to visit the Schonbrunn zoo. Was a bit hesitant as Jill didn't have much good to say about it after her visit in 2013. 

Well dear sister, all we can say is that the summer version of the zoo must be very different to the winter version! The enclosures were large and natural looking and the animals were vey cooperative in being visible. Ended up spending 4hrs there and saw heaps of animals.

Trained back into town and decided to have a quick drink at a cafe near the Rathaus before our Austrian dinner show tonight. Unbelievably it was part of the same chain yet again! So that makes 3 meals at effectively the same cafe. Let me just say that all of these cafes have different names and nothing to show they are part of the same chain until you see the menu. What are the odds of randomly picking 3 cafes in the same chain? Perhaps time to buy a lotto ticket (or maybe every second cafe in Vienna is owned by the same people!).

Next up was our Austrian Dinner Night which was quite good with some Austrian flavoured entertainment to go with our Austrian flavoured meal. Some of the dishes were a bit hit and miss. I particularly liked our waiter's explanation of the 4 dishes in the appetizers as "not pork". Hmmmm thanks very useful!

The show was not quite what we were expecting but still quite entertaining. A bit of lederhosen butt slapping never goes astray and watching couples waltz to the blue Danube was also pretty cool.

All totally exhausted by now so onto the train and off home to bed.