We started our day, as we often do when traveling abroad, locating the BBC as we showered and dressed, sometimes the only English language t.v. option available. We had decided, during our 3 a.m. conversation, on a hop on/hop off bus tour. These are a good way to see a city and you get a treasure trove of information and history about what you are passing by. We thought it would be a relaxing and leisurely way to spend the day after the frenetic pace we had been keeping over the last 2 days.
We learned that 1/3 of the city was destroyed during WW2. Some was rebuilt using the original plans to retain the integrity of important historical areas. Other parts are a juxtaposition of hastily constructed apartment houses, built to alleviate the post war housing shortage, standing side by side with richly ornamented mid 19th century baroque structures. We learned that 50% of the city is green space and the Danube, which runs through the city, has been turned into a canal to control it's annoying habit of flooding, sometimes with devastating results.
There are 3 hop on/hop off bus lines in Vienna. One of these runs to the Schonbrunn Palace located in the outskirts of the city. I had read about it during my research for the trip but due to the limited time originally scheduled for Vienna did not see how we could fit it into our itinerary. We decided to seize the opportunity fate had given us. We took one of the buses which departed near our hotel and then transferred, at the renown Viennese Opera House, to the one that went to the palace. At times the trip to the palace became almost comical as the bus squeezed down narrow streets lined with ornate baroque buildings, still ubiquitous in the city despite the destruction of the war. Moving through more modern areas as we traveled away from the historical center of Vienna we soon found ourselves at the gates to the palace.
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