Vienna - Day 2

The weather was supposed to be beautiful on our 1st day there, so we elected to go see Schonbrunn Palace, which was on the top of our 'must see' list. Schonbrunn Palace was the summer home of the Hapsburgs, and while it's not quite as impressive as the Palace of Versailles, it's pretty close :). We arrived there pretty early (for European standards anyway) and that was nice because there weren't too many tourists going through the palace when we did. We got to bring our stroller in, which is typically not the case, and Carsten rode in the stroller for about half of our time going through. He started getting antsy, so we put him in the ergo carrier for the rest of the tour. We loved seeing all the rooms and finding out more about how they lived. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside (so of course we had to buy a book about the palace to have photos :) ), but here's a few photos of the front side of the palace:

Shonbrunn Palace

'Can I get out now?'

Proof we were all there.

Carsten fell asleep in the ergo carrier as we were walking out of the palace, which was completely unexpected because it was only 10 am (I guess he was bored and figured there was nothing else for him to do ;) ). We decided to let him sleep thinking that even if he took a short nap, he'd probably take one later in the afternoon. Well, ultimately, we were wrong because he only slept for 30 min and would not take a nap the rest of the day, but hey, 6:30 pm bedtime is still nice :). While he was sleeping, we had fun admiring the park and taking photos. And our absolute favorite part is that there was no need to worry about Carsten so we could do what we wanted to without having to chase a certain someone :). Here's some photos of while he was sleeping:

30 min nap wonderkid.

Enjoying our precious moments of naptime.

beautiful.

Since he fell asleep unexpectedly, we did not have a chance to sunscreen him, hence the umbrella.

This is the point when he woke up and said 'WATER!'. And that was that.

We continued on up the hill to see the Gloriette, and spent some time admiring the view of the palace and Vienna. Then we took a touristy train tour around to the other side of the park where we found some sandwiches for lunch, which we then ate in the park. Here are some photos by the Gloriette:

The Gloriette

View of Shonbrunn and Vienna

Cartsen having fun :)

riding the train past a very strange fountain

for some reason, I love standing in the middle of an intersection of these avenues. 

After lunch, we walked around for a bit, and then found ourselves in the maze where there was a super-nice playground with a 'DIGGER!' So of course, we played for quite a while despite the sprinkles of rain. We then went through the maze, which was surprisingly fun and was a pretty low-stress let Carsten run around time. Here's a few photos:

'DIGGER!'

Carsten could have spent all day here.

In one of the mazes, they had a few different fun things. This one was kind of like DDR, piano style.

 After the maze it was starting to look pretty stormy, so we headed to the Emperor's private gardens. Ironically, when we visited the Palace of Versailles, it also got stormy right before we left, so we have some similar pictures.

Getting stormy

Emperor's private gardens

Right after we took this last photo it started to thunderstorm, so we elected to head back to our apartment and give Carsten, our 30 min nap wonderchild, an early bedtime. All in all it was a fantastic day!