Vienna, Day two

Well today we went to the Lipizzaner at the Spanish Riding School of the Hofburg Palace to see the horses perform their morning exercise. Now this is not a show like you would usually see, but more exercising the horses and putting them through their paces.
They are beautiful animals and it was a pleasure to see them up close. All of it is done in silence, the rider speak to the horse through hand gestures or by pulling on the reins. I noted that the riders do hold on tight, to establish who is in charge, these horses are big stallions and have a lot of character and personality, you see it in the way they behave.
Today the Riding school is a private art foundation and is no longer part of the Austrian Army. There are only 5000 Lipizzaner white stallions in the world. The only dissonant note was a couple of very fat, loud tourists who told everyone how much they paid for just about everything during their trip so far, this being a bar of how successful the trip is. We got away from them real fast.

Afterwards, we went again shopping for more Austrian clothing, we have enough of it now to do Sound of Music, just kidding, we bought more shirts and ties and summer pants.

For lunch we went to the Palmenhaus which is the old green houses of the Imperial Palace, part of the green houses is still used for rare plants and is also home for a large collection of live butterflies who fly through the green houses, it is very beautiful and the kids are so impressed by these little creatures, that they fall into a stunned silence. We had grilled forelle which is trout, it was delicious and so fresh with green salad and a glass of Gruner Vetliner, a light Austrian white wine.

After lunch we took a tour of the State Opera House, it was partly destroyed by aerial bombing in March of 1945 a week or so before Vienna fell to the allies. It was rebuilt between 1946-55 in a brutal modernist style. When you visit you can see the front rooms of the building which escaped the destruction and is original including the Imperial salon reserved exclusively to this day to the Austrian Head of State, the rest of the building, the auditorium and backstage is all modern. I pointed out to the guide that the Eagle above the Presidential box, (formerly the Imperial box) looks very American and not Austrian at all. She did not appear to understand what I was talking about. Maybe this was too sensitive a point, Austrians still have problems acknowledging their role during the Second World War and the sucking up to the Allies once the war lost.

We also visited the backstage area, the stage hands were installing the decor and sets for La Traviata. The stage area is one of the largest in Europe and the understage area goes down 4 floors, it is massive. The State Opera is open for opera and ballet only almost 7 nights every week of the year, 1000 people work there and it is a beehive of activity.

Afterwards Will had to return to the hotel, we changed our plans, we will return to Vienna directly from Salzburg and cancelled our stop in Linz. We re-arranged our hotel reservations and now will return on 25 May so we can attend the Volks Oper production of Oscar Strauss, Die Lustigen Nibelungen, a comic spoof on Richard Wagner's Ring cycle.

Tonite we are going to another Austrian restaurant, the Griechenbeisl, the name says Greek but this is because it is next to the Greek Orthodox Church on Fleishmarkt. (www.griechenbeisl.at). Tomorrow morning off to Salzburg and the Music Festival.