Yesterday I fulfilled a long held dream, one held by every little girl who loves ponies.  I left Ian behind and headed to the glorious Spanish Riding School, to see the Lippizzaner stallions.  In summer, most of the horses are turned out for a well earned break, but some of the young stallions are still in training, and you can watch them doing morning exercises.  It lasts for 2 hours, and you see four groups of five horses and riders at a time, with some explanatory narrative between each session, with the exercises themselves being performed to classical music.

Spanish Riding School, where magic happens

I took this before they told us not to take photos

Although you don’t see the “airs above the ground” – the spectacular leaps that only the older stallions with years of practice can perform – there were plenty of piaffes, pirouettes and passages, along with half passes, shoulder ins, and flying changes, to be admired.  It was a privilege to be let into this 500 year old world of tradition for a short time, and to see these amazingly powerful yet graceful animals in action. I was glued to my hard wooden seat until it was time to leave. Unfortunately (for me), no photos allowed, otherwise you’d be scrolling through hundreds of horse pics. I just snapped one before they made the announcement.

On my way to meet Ian, I was lucky enough to see some of the stallions in a courtyard, about to be led off to wherever they go overnight. I couldn’t help comparing their lifestyle with that of the horses that pull the tourist carriages around the city.

The stallions after their exercise

Uber hasn’t reached Vienna yet

Bronzed Lippizzaner

Meeting up with Ian, we joined a walking tour which was part of our 2 day bus pass.  By now it was nearing 35 degrees. Our guide managed to find shade for us as he gave us a potted history of the most famous buildings and monuments. It was hard to concentrate whilst dripping, but we filled in an hour.

Stephansdom is sadly dwarfed by modernism

But the roof is still stunning

The New Years Day concert is broadcast globally from here

Next, it was back on the bus, taking the Yellow line to Schonbrunn, the summer palace of the Hapsburgs.  We’d visited here on our Contiki tour all those long years ago, but didn’t have much time to see the gardens or fountains, much less hike up the hill to the Gloriette.  In today’s heat the climb looked daunting, but we found a shaded path through the woods, and set off.  It was well worth the view – not only could we look down on the palace and the gardens, but the whole of Vienna was laid out before us.

Schonbrunn

Up the garden path …

to the Gloriette …

For the view

You can see our hotel room from here

Statuary

Equestrian statuary

Fishy statuary

Where’s Ian?

Getting wet!

After a short break at the hotel to recover, we set off on the final Blue line bus. Well we thought we did. We boarded at 6.30 pm, thinking we had about an hour until the last bus, which would give us time to complete the circuit out to Danube Island.  But after just a few stops, the driver stopped the bus and evicted us. “Finito!”  No more bus rides today.  Sigh.