We all made across the Atlantic ocean relatively painlessly; some sleeping even happened. Dustin used his skills to get us bulkhead seats (more leg space for Dustin! a bassinet for Claire!) and into an airport lounge at Heathrow, providing beloved playdough space for the boys and unlimited snacks. Then a two hour flight to Vienna.
We got in early evening, so we took the train into the city, found our hotel, and got dinner at a nearby cafe, a meeting place for intellectuals such as Freud back in the early twentieth century. Josiah missed dinner and slept on through the night.
Other than Dustin's hour or so playtime with Claire in the lobby, everyone jumped time zones pretty smoothly. We started the day at St. Stephen's Cathedral.
Then the Albertina for some beautiful Impressionist art.
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| Looking at Paul Signac |
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| Monet! Love seeing the texture of the thick paint up close. |
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| Claire wanted to pick all the wild primroses |
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| That brown lump on the left side is a full sized penguin chick--the juvenile is as big as the adults, but still covered n fluffly brown feathers |
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| Poor Josiah fell and scraped up hs mouth. :( |
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| Maze! Decently complicated. |
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| Glockenspiel in the labyrinth |
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| Mirrors in the labyrinth |
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| Water play in the labyrinth |
We still had energy after the palace, so we went to ride the Vienna ferris wheel (built in 1897 and whose metal frame survived WW2 bombing) which offered great views of Vienna. This is the ferris wheel featured in Orson Welles' "The Third Man."
And then, because pacing for us looks like going until everyone crashes, we finished the night at the House of Music Museum, which offered all sorts of fun sound exploration activities.
Day two started at part of the Hofburg Palace touring the palatial rooms followed by 17th century Flemish art. The treasury and the Natural History Museum were disappointingly closed.
And because we mis-read the times and had missed it, we headed back to Schonbrunn to tour just a few of the palace's 1441 rooms. This also gave us time to visit the Children's Museum, which the Elijah especially enjoyed.
Then it was a quick playground stop while Dustin shopped for peanut butter and picked up a dinner of bratwurst.
We left Vienna for Florence by overnight train!
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| Beloved playdough time; partway through the day, Josiah would start asking "sit and do something with his hands" (i.e. playdough) |
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| Thrilled to be sleeping in the top bunk of a sleeper compartment |
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| Not quite as thrilled to be sleeping in the top bunk of a sleeper compartment |
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| Pretending to sleep |
