Dan, Luke and I arrived at this lovely flat last night after two flights and three airports (via Amsterdam). A small poddle into town to explore the area turned into a longer walk passing the University buildings, Opera house and National Library. A hightlight for me was walking through the stables of the Spanish Riding School. Pauline and I plan to see a Training Exercise in the week to see the stallions learning new movements for the famous performances that happen each month.

Today we started with a tram ride around the innerring as everyone had tired legs from last night. A stop at Cafe Schottenring was a lovely break where we sampled the recommended fizzy apple juice from the guide book! It was a very ornate building (with grand piano) and had been open for 131 years.

Our plan was to head for Stephansdom, via the tram but unfortunately we got on the tram at the end of the line, and it took us around a loop back into the same station! The U-Bahn was much more successful. We only had a short visit to the cathedral as it was full of tourists even though a service was happening.

On our way to the natural history museum we came across two very different features in the same street: one a very traditional monument, the other a very modern sculpture which I preferred even though it didn’t make much sense.

The natural history museum was interesting but there’s a lot of history so we may have sped through time quite quickly. We all preferred the living section, with tree frogs, leaf-cutter ants and fish, rather than the stuffed animals upstairs. The geologists/chemists among us enjoyed the gems and crystals in the geology rooms although there was noone else visiting this section apart from us!