Day 12:
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| Hofburg family photo opt |
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| Nice kitty! |
After a delicious breakfast at our motel (seriously, if you need accommodations in Europe check out
Motel One - it's a chain of reasonably priced, clean, and modern motels with breakfasts that are completely worth the extra cost) we headed into the city center again. This time to see the famous horses at the Spanish Riding School. The show horses were on their "summer break" but we still enjoyed the "
Piber Meets Vienna" show. George especially enjoyed the large carriage and baby horses.
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| Waiting for the horses |
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| Dancing to Strauss (of course) |
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| Mommas and babies |
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| Lippizaner mares |
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| The BIG carriage |
Katie insisted it wouldn't rain... but it did. So after lunch at the
Palmenhaus we ducked into the neighboring
Schmetterlinghaus (Butterfly House). There were many beautiful butterflies!
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| Butterflies like bananas, too! |
We took trams #1 and #2 around the Vienna
Ringstrasse for a quick city tour and then stopped at the Opera House for a snack at the Café Sacher. George is a BIG fan of the chocolate ganache that is on the top of the torte.
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| Fun at the Mozart garden |
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| George was exited to be able stand and "hold on" |
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| George navigates the tram map |
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| A little opera at the Opera House |
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| Enjoying a Sacher torte and Esterhazy cake at the cafe |
We found some construction to watch, berries to eat, chocolate to sample, cathedral to marvel at, escalators to ride and even a playground! Poor George was so tired by the time we sat down for dinner he was asleep at the table before the food arrived. He did manage to eat his chicken strips and french fries, even while mostly asleep.
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| Not sure what was going on here, but George was entranced! |
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| Berry break at the base of the Cathedral |
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| HIGH ceilings inside St. Stephen's |
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| The Manner lady let George pick one chocolate to try - He chose a Mozart ball, and liked it! |
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| Riding the escalator to the underground. |
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| A playground! George loved rocking on this Jeep. |
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| So tired! And yes, he has amazing eyelashes! |
George was torn about leaving Europe. He missed Zizzi and Kürbis, and his friends Harry, Abi and Winnie, his own bed, his own car seat... but at the same time he didn't want to leave. We just had to promise that we would indeed return and that there would be plenty of fun to be had back in the USA.
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| Museumsquartier |
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| Nice open space for running |
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| Elephant statue at the Natural History Museum |
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| Goodnight! |
Good night Vienna! Tomorrow begins the
long journey home... no spoilers here folks.
