Vienna, Austria: A Saturday Adventure

Janine and I began our day at the Naschmarkt, which is like a GIANT farmer's market...except the sell all sorts of fresh food (meat, fish, olives, spices, sauerkraut, etc.), not just fruits and vegetables.  We did get some of the fruit pictured above for breakfast though, including my first fig, and it was delicious.  The gypsies are also allowed to set up on Saturdays at one end of the market, so in addition to the food, we got to look through what basically amounted to a giant quality flea market.  It was very cool.  After that, we headed out of town to the Vienna main cemetery, which is the biggest cemetery I have ever seen in my life.  It was interesting though--it was split into a Christian section and a Jewish section, had lots of really old graves, and lots of famous musicians were buried there (Strauss and Brahms, for example).

We toured the 1441-room Schonbrunn Palace, summer residence of the emperors and empresses of the Austro-Hungarian empire from the mid-1800s to the end of World War I when the empire collapsed.  Don't worry--we didn't see all the rooms :-)  The Hapsburgs fashioned themselves quite the house, though, and the gardens are expansive and beautifully manicured.

At the end of our long hot sight-seeing, we headed down to the Danube around sunset and took a nice long swim.  The river was clean and clear (think the Platte River, Michigan readers), cool, and very refreshing.  We also got quite an eyeful from many of the local Germans.  All in all, a very satisfying end to the day.