Steps, steps, and more steps.....

This may be the LAST post about our trip!!! (maybe)

I can honestly say that this is the first vacation that I've ever been on where I woke up, literally, every day and needed to take Aleve to help me get out of bed. We figured out the secret to skinny Europeans: not much food and LOTS of walking!!  I'm not complaining...we had a great time and enjoyed most of the steps we took,  but there were lots of them :)  So, this entire post will just be pictures of some of the steps that we walked up. I hope you enjoy!

these weren't technically steps, you would have had the option to ride the trolley to the top of the mountain, but we walked instead because why you a trolley when you have 2 perfectly good feet?

National Opera House

On Sunday, in Vienna, we decided to do a tour of the Opera House. It was so worth it! It was such a beautiful building and our tour guide did such a great job telling stories about the building. We really enjoyed it - and not just because it was warm and dry :)

Entertaining ourselves waiting for the tour to start :)

The main stage. They were set up for that evening's show but I don't remember what it was. 

our tour guide making us smarter by the minute

The orchestra pit. We were surprised at how big it was! and that the Vienna Philharmonic is also the "house" orchestra for all performances. 

Backstage - bigger than main stage and super tall. This didn't count all the extra storage buildings that they have off site that hold everything for their yearly shows. 

Interestingly, at least to me, was that this Opera House was built to look like a smaller version of the main opera house in Paris. The Emperor was so disappointed in it that he considered the place a disgrace from the very beginning. The architects were embarrassed and shamed for the rest of their lives - which I don't think was much longer after the building of it. and I mean, who wouldn't be embarrassed??? Obviously this place is lacking ;)   

The tapestries were all made to represent different scenes from Mozart's Magic Flute opera. 

This was the Emperor's hang out room for during the shows that he went to see. It was beautiful!

Another hangout/intermission room decorated by lots of different composer's heads. She had a contest asking if we could figure out what operas they had composed and Chris knew them all :)

This was a picture of some ball they do every year that raises most of the money to keep the Opera House open. 

The main hall. It was so nice!  With lots of boxes for people to sit in and, of course, the best seats in the house were the Emporer's private box. 

Once we finished the tour, our tickets also got us into the Museum that held lots more stuff and info from the Opera House. So, we made our way over to it to check it out. Mostly because we wanted to see what it had looked like before it was bombed in World War 2 and we were told there were pictures of it in the Museum. While we didn't find any great pictures of that, we did find our incredible ballet skills while looking at the exhibits :)

and Chris made sure that he had gotten lots of good pictures to document everything :)

Schönbrunn Palace

 In Vienna, there were both the regular palace and the summer palace of the people in the Habsburg Dynasty. This is the regular palace. We didn't go in it, I'm not sure why, but we did look at the outside!

 These were old ruins that had been uncovered. I forget the timeline of it but it was really old. Like Jesus old. 

 The palace was where the marathon had started so there were lots of tents and stuff set up!

 and THIS is the summer palace. If I were a ruler of Austria, I would have stayed at the Summer palace all the time because it was really cool and the grounds were amazing and much better for kids to run around on! There were mazes, playgrounds, a labyrinth, a big bird cage, and lots of water and fountains. and that wasn't counting the inside of the place. 

We toured the inside but you couldn't take pictures of it. So, we just have pics of the outside stuff. 

We all loved how manicured it was. I think Chris was just glad he didn't have to mow it :)

There were lots of statues. I think when I googled it, google said there were 32. We didn't take pictures of all 32 of them but here are a couple. 

The Big Bird House

 Anyone that knows us Wilson girls at all, knows that we are terrified of birds. But the grounds reminded me of some of my "christian romance novels" and in one of them the man was building a bird place and so I wanted to see one. It's surprising how accurate my picture in my head was :) However, the closer we got the more birds started showing up!  And Shannon and Chris thought it would be a good idea to feed them. I think it started with Shannon trying to feed a squirrel but birds showed up instead and there were lots of them!  Which pretty much meant Liz and I took off. But the boys took pictures of each other feeding birds out of their hands.

 I thought this thing was cool. It would be a fountain but it wasn't on. It was still cool. 

See the water shooting up over my head? This is the castle from there. 

and this is where you could cut thru the bushes to be right behind the water. It was really neat. 

Then there was a really long walk up to the pinnacle of the grounds. However, you need to realize that it was about 34 degrees outside and wet. So, we were pretty miserable but it's not like Chris and I would ever be there again to see stuff, so we endured the miserable weather. However, we did have the option to take a more direct, somewhat sheltered by trees walk or zig zag our way up. Liz and Shan wanted to zig zag but my legs were saying NO!!!  

Here we are discussing :)

Where we were headed!  The Gloriette 

 It was a beautiful structure and the view from it was amazing!

 We walked back the way I wanted to thru the woods. and I was glad we did! Not only was it less wet, we got to see some cool stuff. Trees. squirrels, ducks, it wasn't an awful walk...I'm just saying....

Then we cut across the grounds to the fun kid stuff. There was also a zoo on the property but we decided the animals were probably as miserable as we were and weren't up for being seen. So, we didn't go to it. 

We did go to the fun mirrors tho because you shouldn't ever pass those up :)

This maze was aMAZEing!  It was really fun even in the rain. and there was this fun lookout thing in the middle of it where my umbrella totally "Mary Poppins-ed" in the wind. 

More interesting play stuff.....You rode this thing from side to side and it made water shoot up!

 and you could jump on these for no reason at all

 There were more of the bell things like in Bratislava and once Chris realized that it was made up of all the black  notes on the piano, I knew I could play a song by jumping between them. So, for your listening pleasure....Amazing Grace :)

 Liz climbed up the ropes to sit in this bird. It was really cold up there so Chris and I decided against it. But Shannon got in it too although we don't have pictures of it. But it was funny because he bounced it so hard that it sounded like it broke....but it didn't.... just made us all laugh really loud like Americans

 Liz wanted an artsy picture of the tulips in the foreground and the palace blurry in the back so Shannon obliged her while she supervised :)  

This day was so fun!  Even in the weather. We debated on staying an extra night so as to be able to play in the sun the next day, but we had to get back. So, our road trip was coming to an end.