Sunday, April 29: South Steirerland

Sunday before church: walked around the vineyard and surrounding area early in morning--so cool--hills, vineyards, interesting buildings, 
sunrise over the mountains 

church,

Some of the people at church wore traditional Austrian clothing (trachten). It was much more common in Austria than in Germany.  After church Luis took me to see a bell ringing nearby--it took 4 people to ring the bell. We also walked past some Roman ruins. 

 

After mittagessen of Wienerschnitzel, we all went to Maribar in Slovenia, an old city (first mentioned as a castle in the 1100s and a city in the 1200s) known for its very old grapevine among other things.The grapevine of Žametovka is about 450 years old^.

The oldest grapevine in the world

 

Then on the way back a walk through woods back to Slovenia to an overlook tower--
the border was marked by a high fence through which a door which had been created to make room for the path.

Then to Groebachers for coffee--a really good homemade cake,

a walk down to the party for the May Day festival--the highlight being the firetruck.

And finally supper....

Saturday, April 28: Zoo and drive to Styria

In the morning we took the ubahn downtown to a flea market where we found a firetruck which sprayed water. The kids went to the Lipizzaner horse show, and I took the grandkids to the Tiergarten Schönbrunn, a zoo located on the grounds of the Schönbrunn Palace. It was founded as an imperial menagerie in 1752 and is the oldest continually operating zoo in the world.  It is arranged like a wheel around a central point with koala, pandas, kangaroos, lions, giraffes, even rats and bats and an insect house. There are several overlook points, an overhead walkway , a treetop walk and on a hill overlooking the zoo is a cliff with a genuine Austrian farmhouse and lots of authentic Austrian animals. Tirolerhof Another long area overlooking extensive areas below was the rain forest. 
Rain forest-

 

map

LOCATION

| Use Underground U4 to Hietzing, from there it is about 10 minutes to walk., Vienna 1130, Austria

Good description

Naptime on the metro

 It was by far the nicest zoo I had ever been too--I would have loved to have had more time to explore it, but we were scheduled to continue our trip.

Rain Forest

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After zoo drove to Vogau in Steiermark (Styria) Austria. We had dinner with the Gröbacher’s.  Their property had originally been a farm and contained an old barn from Luis' father, possibly even further back than that.The house had two levels.  Luis' parents had lived in the lower level and Luis had added the upper level when he and Greta married.  Now their sons lived in the lower level.

We stayed at Weinhof Kugel, place belongs to  Christian and Stephanie in the Gemeinde, a vineyard on the hills with a gasthof.

 It had 2 bedrooms, a living room, and table, and a small kitchen.

Friday, April 27: Schönbrunn Palace

Friday: A seven minute walk took me from our apartment to Neil and Bella's hotel. I spent the day with them.

First we went to the Schönbrunn Palace, taking the Maria Theresa tour inside, outside gardens, orangery, maze, arbor, overlook.  

Then mittagessen at place on corner near the schloss where we sat outside and ate lunch. The baby changing station was also outside.

After that we walked to St Stephen’s cathedral.

In the afternoon I took the metro and walked to St Peter's cathedral where I met Neil and Bella for an organ concert.

  
 The way back was past interesting buildings...

 Delicious desserts....

 

and Roman Ruins.

In the evening we had dinner at the apartment with Neil and Bella