Day 704: Schloss Schönbrunn

29/06/2023

This morning, Eloise was having a lovely conversation with Alexa, she gets along much nicer with Alexa, as Google does not tend to understand her thick Glaswegian accent which enrages her. For breakfast, the kids were happy to clear out the remaining strawberries. Our recent parenting trick when we are out and about and need to get Lachlan into a high chair is to tell him it is Juju’s and he immediately becomes obsessed with it.

This apartment is also comfortable, it is half underground and luckily stays nice and cool. When we emerged onto the street it was already warm, it was shaping up for another hot day. Eloise was prepared though.

We then jumped on the der Wiener untergrund and rode the Hütteldorf to Schönbrunn which was relatively straightforward. Lachlan provided free commentary guided tour for all in the carriage of what he could see on today’s adventure.

It was a short walk until we arrived at one of Austria’s most popular tourist attractions, the mighty Schönbrunn Palace. The front of the Palace was obscured by the 2023 Film Festival. Eloise was not impressed this Film Festival keeps getting in her way.

After Eloise had convinced Lachlan to move past the entrance we were in the palace. The exterior of the palace was large but had not impressed us yet. The interior however was where the real show was.

We were not allowed to take any photos throughout the whole palace so we had to get the FIK stealth camera out again. The kids were on their best behavior throughout the tour, we were impressed, “the 1,441-room Baroque palace is one of the most important architectural, cultural, and historic monuments in the country”. At the start of the tour we were provided with audioguides and Eloise and Lachlan enjoyed typing the room numbers in and pressing play. It was great number practice for both of them. Eloise was darting about making sure Dad had the right audio track set for each room, insisting she types his number in herself.

To see the rest you will have to visit yourselves. Not only was Schönbrunn Palace enormous but the Palace Gardens were equally scaled and vast.

There were multiple gardens, we started in the Privy Garden where we released Eloise and Lachlan with space to run. We had to keep a close eye on Lachlan, it was a bit like a live game of Where’s Wally?

The sun was starting to have its effect on us, we were all desperate for food and drinks.

After delicious meals and some good ol’ Grandpa DAVE hat frisbee, we made our way out the back of the palace into the Main Garden, which was actually a series of gardens, but we had given up on reading gardens names by this stage. We also got our first sight of the Gloriette on the top of the hill.

We enjoyed the speccy Neptune fountain, which had strong Trevi Fountain vibes.

Eloise and Lachlan then raced off to the maze and labyrinth. This was one of the better mazes they had done, it was long which turned into a workout, in fact, there were actually three mazes. Lachlan may have taken his recent Hogwarts visit too seriously and was fully equipped with his magic wand for anything that jumped out at him.

The second maze was a wee shorter in height, although this didn’t help Eloise or Lachlan, they were having a ball regardless.

The central mirror decoys proved to be a tricky obstacle to navigate with Eloise going full ninja before saving her wee bro.

For the third maze, it was only Eloise and Liam standing as we took on the final maze boss level. Eloise had to face her archenemy, Mr Sprinkler as we sped through.

At the centre of the final maze, we had to solve a maths riddle, with no Grandpa DAVE at hand. Luckily Eloise has been taking notes and was able to crack it.

Now the tricky bit, with the sun shining we managed to push the loaded pram up to the Gloriette.

The view from the top was worth the struggle. Eloise got a sneaky ice cream while Lachlan fell asleep.

A gloriette (from the 12th-century French gloire meaning “little room”) is a building in a garden erected on a site that is elevated with respect to the surroundings. The structural execution and shape can vary greatly, often in the form of a pavilion or tempietto, more or less open on the sides. The largest and probably best-known gloriette is in the Schönbrunn Palace garden in Vienna. Built in 1775 as the last building constructed in the garden according to the plans of Austrian imperial architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg as a “temple of renown” to serve as both a focal point and a lookout point for the garden, it was used as a dining hall and festival hall as well as a breakfast room for emperor Franz Joseph I.

It was a fast paced descent as the girls had to dash off to their apple strudel masterclass.

Nali, Super Mum and Eloise, especially Eloise, had a terrific time in their Strudelshow. While they were waiting, Eloise was jumping up and down saying “I am so excited” repeatedly, she does love cooking classes with Super Mum.

On completion of the Strudelshow, they were given the strudle hotline for all their live strudlemaking assistance.

Thankfully the girls had saved some apple struddle for the boys to try. They were hungry after entertaining Lachlan, who was supposed to be still asleep.

Schönbrunn Palace was the main summer residence of the Habsburg rulers, located in Hietzing, Vienna. The name Schönbrunn (meaning “beautiful spring”) has its roots in an artesian well from which water was consumed by the court. The 1,441-room Baroque palace is one of the most important architectural, cultural, and historic monuments in the country. The history of the palace and its vast gardens spans over 300 years, reflecting the changing tastes, interests, and aspirations of successive Habsburg monarchs. It has been a major tourist attraction since the mid-1950s.

After a massive day, we caught the subway back which was a nice peaceful journey for most but not for all.