Back before there was orienteering or cycling, there were horses.  They were my life and my passion from childhood, and they kept me bankrupt but happy from my teens until my early 30s.  A beautiful horse still makes my heart flutter.  Consequently I returned to the Spanish Riding School today.  Last time I watched Morning Training (no similarity to Saturday Morning Training back home), and saw the horses performing in the arena.  This time I booked myself onto a “rooftop tour” of the building, which also included a tour of the stables.

We were taken into the winter riding arena, where all the performances take place.  Last time I sat in the cheap seats, up high.  This time we were seated in the Royal Box, where we could get a good close look at the internal structure, including the chandeliers and the ceiling decorations. 

This became relevant, because after climbing up the next set of spiralling stairs, we emerged into the roof space, and we were walking above that very ceiling, and those very chandeliers!  It was a fascinating maze of 300 year old spruce trusses and beams.  Our guide, Jakob, explained that the interior of the hall was not marble, but stucco; and if there were more than 25 people in the rafters at once, the vibration would cause the stucco to start falling off!

We climbed up even further, to a space where there were some tiny windows at the top of a steep narrow ladder.  Peering out, here is what we could see.

After returning to ground level, we were shown the summer riding arena and the horse walker, where the stallions can self-exercise – there is nowhere for them to run free in the heart of Vienna, so they spend an hour each day in the walker.  They spent 2 or 3 months at a time in Vienna, then they are spelled out in the country.  We also learned that every stallion has the chance, at least once a year, to perform his stallion duties “au naturale”.

Then we visited the “stable castle”, an incredible multi level courtyard built for the horses.  We were taken through the stables and introduced to some of the stars of the show – such gentle, friendly, intelligent animals.  You could tell the true horse geeks amongst the groups – we were the ones who swooned almost as much over the tack room ($$$$$ worth of saddles), as we did over the horses.  It was a brilliant tour that I recommend if you want to see a different side to one of Vienna’s main attractions.