Thursday morning dawned bright and beautiful. The kids were super excited to finally get to go swimming in the hotel pool. We had them get their swimming suits on and throw some clothes over, then we raced down to breakfast. It was delicious, and as usual came with steaming mugs of hot chocolate for all the kids. When they couldn't stuff another bite more into their tummies, we walked over to the reception desk to ask where the pool as located. She pointed to the sheet of metal out in the balcony and explained that that was the pool, but it was closed for renovations. 🙁 Oh, the disappointed faces! The crushed spirits! The wasted swimsuits!
She tried to make it better by telling us there was a public pool just 15 minutes walk from the hotel and that we were welcome to go swimming there. "Uh, yeah, lady we got 15 minutes total to swim. That isn't gonna cut it. A notice in the rooms would have been AWESOME!" But apparently, that is just way too much customer service. So we dried their tears, and herded them back upstairs to get properly dressed and ready for the day. Fortunately, getting to finally see where Princess Sisi lived helped take the sting out of no swimming for most of them.
Schloss Schoenbrunn is located on the outskirts of Vienna, in what used to be considered countryside, but is now just the fringes of the city. It is painted the famous "Kaisergelb" or Emperor Yellow, that all royal buildings and many "wanna be" dwellings of the rich and famous were painted. It is such a bright, cheerful color, I wanted to buy a pot and paint something of my own with it. But I couldn't decide what, so I didn't try to talk Chris into adding a stop at a local paint store to our itinerary.
There was a huge line at the ticket office, and we were worried the kids would go completely crazy before we even got in the place. We had waited for about 5 minutes, when a man from the ticket office came out and went down the line, informing any families with young children that there was a children's museum over on the other side of the castle and that you could also purchase tickets for the regular museum there as well. What a nice thing for him to do.
The children's museum was the total hit of the vacation. There were fun period costumes to try on, complete with hoop skirts to make your dress puff out, wigs, gloves, and even crowns.
The girls could have stayed there for hours, but we have a majority rules system of government in our house. So when the majority of the group was ready to move on, they had to as well.
The second area of the museum takes you through rooms you don't get to see on the regular tour. Several of them were rooms used by some of the royal children who used to live there and still had the original murals on the walls, and the actual beds they slept on. There were also lots of hands on things for the kids to play with, display cases at their eye level so they could really study Sisi's beautiful jewelrey and hair brushes, and even a banquet table where they could "feast" on all sorts of fancy plastic food, like lobsters, eclairs and even a whole roasted chicken. The kids had a really good time and even learned a lot.
When we had seen all there was to see in that section of the castle, we went and picked up our audio guides for the big tour. Just as we entered the second room, Alexandra decided it would be a good time for a meltdown. She refused to sit in her stroller, didn't want to walk, just wanted to be held by Chris. And even then, she was wriggling around in a general not content sort of way. It was a nightmare. It didn't help that it was pretty warm in the castle (no air conditioning and big crowds) and he was just as tired as she was. Eventually she did calm down, but it pretty much ruined the experience for Chris. :( The rest of us had a grand time and really enjoyed learning all about the people who had lived there through the years. There were some very impressive rooms, but also ones that were rather simple. The neat thing about Schoenbrunn is that it was really lived in, and rather recently as well. So it was easier for me to feel a connection to the inhabitants and the house itself. I would love to go back and take some of the other tours they offer, like through the kitchens and carriage house. Another year, perhaps. 🙂
We headed outside to enjoy the gardens for a bit, and cooled off by running through the sprinklers. Amelia and Nicholas ended up so soaked through, they looked as if they had gone swimming in their clothes. I got pretty wet as well, but the sun dried us off completely on the walk back to the car. We could have stayed at Schoenbrunn all day, but Linz and Angie's family were waiting for us.
We got back on the road at about the time we originally said we would be arriving in Linz. Oops! So Angie's brother and sister were waiting for us when we arrived at the hotel. The brother, also named Chris, had to leave again rather quickly, but came back and had dinner with us and Ursula later that evening. Before dinner, we drove through town and up to the little neighborhood where Angie had lived as a little girl. We saw their apartment building, and the garden where they used to play.
She had brought several old photos and showed the kids where she and her siblings had been standing in the photos, then we went to those places in the yard. It was really neat to connect to her childhood that way. There was even a neighbor who stopped and chatted for a while who lived in the apartment next door. The old woman who had lived across the hall from Angie when she was a girl, had died just a few years ago, and had lived in that apartment the whole time. So these people knew that old woman as well. Kind of fun how that turned out. We also saw the school where she went to first, second and I believe, third grade. She told the kids about how scared she had been to go to school, but that it turned out all right in the end.
I am so glad she was able to be with us and show the kids these spots from her childhood. I want them to know her as a whole person, who was once a little girl, not just an already grown up lady. And of course, Sarah was willing to listen to any stories from her childhood that she was willing to tell.
For dinner, we went to the hotel where Ursula, Angie's sister was staying. She lives in Canada and just happened to be coming to Linz the same time we were. So, of course, we had to get together. 🙂 She kindly treated us to dinner at this restaurant, which was the same one Opa used to eat at every day while he was a missionary serving in Linz; baked Emmentaler and a salad, all for less than a US dollar. We called him while we were at dinner, and he told that story to the kids. Of course, this was also the city where he knocked on Oma's family's door and first taught them about the Gospel. So wonderful to be in that city finally, that contains so many special memories for our family. I hope the kids remember it always.
It was very late by the time we finished eating, of course, but it was so nice that we hated to leave. Our only consolation was that we would get to see everyone again in the morning.