We entered through the far part of the grounds and just wandered around in the gardens. We visited the Palm House, where royalty that can't travel the world, has the plants and flowers of the world brought to them.
I always have pictures of trains for dad, so now time for some pictures for mom: beautiful flowers.
And a picture for all the nieces and nephews. These amazing snails were huge! As big as my fist with their shells. We thought they were totally cool.
We went to the Desert House next, where pretty birds of all colors were flitting around everywhere. Here's one of our favorites.
We continued our walk through the garden mazes...
We came upon this one wall that was impressively tall and made from trees that were pruned to only grow on one side. At first Marty didn't believe me when I said it was a wall made from trees.
As we approached the palace, the grand gardens unfolded before us, with their colorful flowers laid out in artistic patterns and their promenades lined with statues. It was awe-inspiring.
There was the amazing Neptune fountain with the Gloriette triumphal arches on the hilltop in the distance.
We walked around taking it all in, and then went in to get our tickets for the palace tour. There was a 2 hour wait, so we visited the Carriage Museum and more of the gardens as we waited. And the palace cafe had some of the best food we've ever had, especially for a cafe that was serving hundreds of people with a fast turnaround. We were impressed. Wienerschnitzel & Apfel Strudel!
After the palace tour, where we could not take pictures (you'll have to google it up to see how amazing it is), we went to the Tiergarten (the animal garden... aka Zoo)
Oh but before we went in the zoo, we saw this cool duck in one of the fountains. It almost didn't look real.
The Schloss Tiergarten claims to be the oldest zoo in the world, and they host a most interesting collection of animals in very nice settings. We saw rhinos, hippos, elephants, lions, bears, polar bears, penquins, flamingos, peacocks, sea lions, kangaroos, giraffes, and pandas that were cute & cuddly. I couldn't get very good pictures of them through the glass area where they were hanging out though.
So here are a couple pics of some of my favorites. The lemurs were very entertaining, and my first time to see a real koala bear just made me think about how much I look forward to moving to Australia.
Vienna is a fabulous city. If you ever have the opportunity, you should include it on a tour of Europe.
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