Today we went into the old centre of Vienna and man what a pretty city. The buildings are simple and beautiful and the things that are accentuated are done in a lovely baroque style. We went to both the summer and winter palaces of the Hapsburg family, the ruling family of Austria for over 300 years. The last Hapsburg left the throne in 1918 after WWI and since then Austria has been a democracy. The winter palace was the main residence of the family and covers 10 city blocks and has 3000 rooms. The summer palace only has under half the amount of rooms at 1400. While the winter palace was the main residence it is still in use as presidential offices and other government departments and as such we couldn't go inside. We could go inside the summer palace and it was palatial (obviously). The walls were all had guilded lining and there were many works of art. It is hard to go into to much detail without going into the story of the Hapsburgs as they are inextricably linked. Look it up on Wikipedia as I'm not a history teacher. This evening we went to an 800 year old restaurant in a town called Gumpoldskirchen. The food was traditional Austrian fare of roast meats, cold cuts, sausage, potato and sauerkraut. I HATE SAUERKRAUT!! The food was lovely if not plain but the two musicians we had were marvelous. There was a violinist and a piano accordion and they were flawless and they played many famous songs, even Waltzing Matilda. Music seems to be the common theme in Vienna, we visited Johann Strauss apartment and all out guide as pointing out were musical centres, landmarks and facts. It was interesting but it appears only two families live in Vienna, the Hapsburg family and the Strauss family. Nepotism was well and truly alive in Vienna. So to sum up Vienna is highly attractive but very plain.

Alex