Vienna, Schloss Schönbrunn

It has been a bit quiet on the blog, as I was busy first organizing and then traveling to Vienna and Bratislava. As Gaby won a two months internship at the IST Austria, it was only logical to choose Vienna for our next self-organized trip to an European city. We spent four full days in Vienna - the weekend with Gaby at her place, so that we could go around together more easily and spent some time with her and then on Monday we moved to an airbnb flat right at the heart of the city for our next two days.

For 10th year running Vienna has been ranked the best city to live in the world and I couldn't agree more. I'm in love with this city! It's beautiful, the public transport is excellent and easy to use, there are plenty of exquisite parks and gardens to roam through, shops and stores, places to eat and drink, everything is made easy and comfortable for the locals and the guests of the city. The people are very friendly, open and polite, there was something very positive and joyful in the very air of the city, despite the swarms of tourists everywhere.

As we are hikers, we love to walk and for our five days abroad (four in Vienna and one in Bratislava) we walked almost 100 km!, averaging about 20 km a day. To me this is the best way to get to know a city and to feel the atmosphere of the place.

I'm starting my visual story with our second day, which we spent with Gaby entirely at the Schonbrunn castle and its big and beautiful park.

:At the entrance of the castle

: The green areas to the right of the castle

: Around the greenhouse

:At the fountain

: The gardens in front of the castle are magnificent

: At the Gloriette - a pavilion, built on a hill facing the castle and providing an overview to the grounds and the city.

: The "Roman" ruins

: The layout of the castle. We took the audio guided imperial tour of the main 22 rooms of the castle - it was interesting and informative and quite worth it.