Vienna

On Friday we collected our rental car and hit the road for Vienna. It should be about a 4 hour drive but it took us about 6 hours between the traffic leaving Prague, potty breaks and food breaks. It was a fairly easy drive though which was nice. As we left the Czech Republic you drive through a weird "in between" space between Austria and Czech where there are outlets and casinos and some sketchy looking flea markets. We had to laugh though since the outlets were called Freeport but we were definitely not in Maine! We continued our drive into Austria and made it to our hotel with little difficulty. We waited a little while in the car while Jason finished up a conference call and then headed into the hotel. The girls were excited to be staying in a hotel. Upon arrival our room was not ready but that was fine since they offered us free coffee and cakes while we waited. The girls enjoyed their hot chocolates and had fun drawing with the paper and pen the hotel staff gave them. We eventually headed up to our room and got ourselves sorted out while the girls jumped on their bed. We headed downstairs to the restaurant and ordered dinner. The girls were so tired that they didn't eat much. I finished my meal and left Jason to pay while I took the girls upstairs to get ready for bed. They were very tired but the excitement of a huge bed and sleeping in it together was a little too much for them and they didn't fall asleep right away. Such is life...I was excited about the big beds with down pillows, comforters etc that I couldn't really blame them for their excitement! Ali had a fitful night sleep which meant we all did but we got up in the morning and headed out of the hotel to do some sightseeing.

Our first order of business was to find breakfast. To our surprise there were not many places open in the morning at 8:30. We had to wait until about 9 for a few cafes to open. Needless to say we were all a bit grumpy until we had some food. After finding breakfast we headed out to St Stephens church which is a big church in the middle of the city. We looked at the church and let the girls run around in the pedestrian area and then continued on to the Christmas Market. The Vienna Christmas Market has a lot of fun things for kids. The market is essentially broken up into three parts. The middle part has all the stalls selling food, drinks, ornaments, hats, nativity scenes, etc. On the left and on the right were areas for kids. The right side had houses to go in and watch little puppet shows as well as pony rides. The kids loved the house with the hand puppets. They pressed the button to make the show start again many times. After leaving that house we moved on to the pony rides. Here is a video of the kids in the house with the hand puppets.

After all that excitement we headed back to the hotel for a nap. The girls were definitely tired. Sofia slept for 2 hours and Ali slept for 3 hours. It is unheard of for Sofia to sleep during the day so we decided to just let the girls sleep as long as they wanted. After a good nap we went to the pool. After going from hot tub to pool many times we decided it was time to head outside again and finish seeing the market. We were all excited to see all the Christmas lights as well. We walked along the inner ring until we reached the market. We started with the left side to see what else they had for kids. Unfortunately we couldn't go in any of he houses since they all closed up at 7pm but the girls did get to go on the carousel and a little train ride which they loved. It was hard to pry them away from the rides but we all needed food. We headed back into the crowded middle section and had hot drinks and sausages and then headed back to the hotel. By the time we got back and were ready for bed it was 10pm. Even with the long naps the girls were still tired. We all fell asleep very quickly. Before going to sleep however, we didn't want to wait for the cafes to open in the morning for breakfast so we splurged and ordered room service.

In the morning we woke and had a leisurely breakfast in our room and then packed and headed out to Schonbrunn Palace. We didn't have much time before we needed to be on the road back to Prague but I really wanted to see this palace. The pictures of it are so beautiful. We didn't have time to go inside but we went out back to the gardens and walked around for a little bit but it was very cold so our time was brief. We agreed though that we will need to go back to Schonbrunn in the summer so we can see all the flowers in bloom and enjoy walking around the grounds.

It was a whirlwind weekend but we did get to see a fair amount of the city and we are looking forward to going back again.