Horses, Music and Mountains

On Wednesday September 4th (John's birthday) we headed to Europe again for an adventure, this time with plans to visit Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland.  First stop was Vienna, so Sara could see the Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding School perform in their traditional riding school in the center of Vienna.

We arrived Thursday afternoon, and settled into our apartment for the next three nights. The location was perfect, right opposite the Hofburg Place which houses the baroque Winter Riding School for our performance on Saturday!  The weather was perfect, so we spent a few hours in the evening walking around the area enjoying the architecture and gardens.  Friday Sara had lunch with some work colleagues, then we ventured out to the beautiful Schönbrunn Palace and gardens and some general wandering around the city.  

Our big day in Vienna was Saturday, starting with a magnificent performance of the Lipizzaner stallions. Sara had always wanted to see this performance in the amazing indoor riding arena built around 300 years ago. The Spanish Riding School has been practicing traditional horse and rider training (dressage) for over 450 years and shows young stallions starting their training, and the fully trained stallions and riders. The show includes the famous "School Quadrille" which consists of 8 horses in formation riding to classical music. The whole performance was mesmerizing, even for people who don't understand the difficulty of the moves. We left with just memories since photos were not allowed, however did pop into the souvenir shop for some items! 

After lunch we returned to the school to enjoy a behind the scenes tour of the facility and stables and horses! Very enjoyable, and Sara could have stayed for the rest of the day if allowed. We ate an excellent traditional Austrian dinner in a restaurant that has been in the same family and building since 1736.  

We finished the day with a classical music performance with music from Mozart and Strauss, including opera singing and ballet. It was a wonderful evening, and John commented the music was so beautiful we should definitely attend the Dallas Symphony more often!

Sunday(8th) was the start of the driving part of the holiday. We picked up our car and headed to Salzburg. The rain from Saturday continued, and it was still pretty wet and cold when we arrived at our guest house, which was in a beautifully converted priest's seminary.  We walked around town in the evening, getting wetter and colder and finally stopped for a great Italian meal and some warmth. Monday morning it was still raining, so we headed to the small town of Hallstatt which is on a lake in the mountains. The weather was still wet and cold, but we took the funicular railway up to the look out point and were lucky to see some lovely views.  We spent the evening wandering around the old town and the weather started to clear enough for John to get some great photos.

Tuesday (10th) we headed into the mountains to start the camping part of our trip, we did stop on the way to buy some warm comforters to use on top of our sleeping bags, given the unusually cold weather! We drove the fabulous Grossglocker high alpine road and found a delightful camp site to stay for a few days while we explored the area. We are currently camping in Slovenia for a few days before heading to Budapest. 

Click HERE to view the photos!