On to Bavaria and Vienna

We arrived in Munich Monday morning and drove past these impressive city gates.  

Luckily, we found a parking spot close to the old city center so we could walk to the square on a lovely day.  

The Munich Rathaus (City Hall) on the town square.  It's HUGE, and there was a big crowd there waiting for the noon carillon performance in the tower.  

The bell carillon played while the figures rotated and moved.  

My favorite figures were these knights jousting.  The second time around, one knight got knocked off his steed!!   :-)  

I have to apologize, but I absolutely cannot remember where this building was located, but it was really interesting!!  If anyone knows the city where this building is located, please let me know.   I have it narrowed down to Bratislava, Salzburg, Munich or Vienna.  ;-)             LOL!!  

We stopped at a grocery store to get food then had a picnic lunch in Munich at the famous English Gardens, which are supposed to be the largest urban garden in Europe.  It was fun to see all the people out enjoying the green space in the sunshine --- mothers with children or babies in strollers, people biking, walkers, joggers, kids kicking soccer balls around, and sunbathers.  (Grandma's first exposure to nude sunbathers --- pun intended!!  But from a distance!)     ;-)   

We went back to our hotel near Salzburg that night (only about an hour and a half away), then headed to Vienna on Tuesday morning.  It was another beautiful day for traveling, and we easily found our hotel there, which was familiar because we stayed there with the kids in December. 

In Vienna we were able to just park the car and take the metro to do our sight-seeing.  We love how easy it is to use the Vienna underground!   

First stop was the Schönbrunn Palace, home to Austrian kings and queens!!  We took the extended tour of the palace with audio headphones explaining everything in English, but no photos were allowed inside.  It was spectacular of course!!  

This is the fountain (bottom) and a summer terrace far up a hill behind the palace.  

In the gardens behind the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna.  The geometric arrangements of the flowers were absolutely spectacular on a warm, sunny summer day.   

Tim went all the way to the end of the gardens to see this fountain at the far side.  HUGE!!  

He climbed up the long, steep hill to the enclosed summer terrace with spectacular views of Vienna and the palace grounds.   I kept Grandma company on a bench in the shade down near the palace, since it was a hot day and a long uphill climb, and I had been up there already over 30 years ago when I was in Europe by myself.  

On Wednesday we took an elevator up the north tower of Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral for some beautiful views of its famous colored tile roof and the city.

The massive interior of the gothic cathedral - St. Stephen's Cathedral - the #1 tourist attraction in Vienna.  It's definitely one of our highlights of the trip.

We also took a tour of the cathedral's treasury, with many gold chalices and monstranses, religious relics, and other valuable church artifacts.  This was a view from the king's chapel, high in the back of the cathedral.  

For lunch, Tim and his mom both had some authentic Viennese wiener schnitzel and potato salad, which reminded them of Oma's specialty!  Then we took a trolley tour of Vienna's Ring, which featured many of the main sights we had seen with the kids in December such as the Parliament building, the Vienna University, the Rathaus, the Opera, etc.  (I didn't take any more pictures of that area, since they were already on an earlier blog post from December!)  

After lunch, we went to Karlskirche (St. Charles Church) in Vienna which is an outstanding example of Europe's famous Baroque churches.  We took an audio tour inside also.

Karlskirche is being renovated, so we were able to take an elevator about 10-12 stories up into the interior of the dome.  Tim and I continued climbing the stairs even farther, and this was the very top of the dome's ceiling, with little cherub faces peeking over the edges of the clouds.  :-)  

The next morning, Thursday, we headed back to Liptovsky Mikuláš again after our whirlwind tour of Slovakia, Austria and Germany.  Once back at the flat, I quickly got some laundry started, and of course I did the previous blog post!  There will be one more installment from Grandma's trip here.  Stay tuned!!    :-)