2006 The Long NOT Winding Road - Off To The Palace

Buying a 24 hour Rover Ticket in Europe is not like in the UK. The 24 hours start from when the ticket is first used and continues to the same time the next day, whereas in the UK a similar ticket can only be used on the same date. We purchased these due to the amount of walking we had done on the previous day and for 5 euros we had unlimited travel on the trams and underground.
So what did we do first? We walked away from the city centre and headed towards Belvedere Palace. At the junction of Prinz Eugen Str and Schwarzenbergpl at the bottom of the castle grounds, there is a fountain and monument dedicated to the Russian soldiers.





We entered eventually found a way in and entered the palace grounds at the foot of the formal gardens.


In 1803 these gardens became the first alpine style garden with over 4,000 plants representing the diverse flora of the alpine ecosystem. The gardens are best viewed in the Spring and Summer seasons. The young lady in the photo below kindly pointed the way forward to us.

During our visit the gardens were undergoing a large restoration project along with the palace itself.


Belverdere has two palaces in its grounds designed by J.L. von Hildebrandt for Prince Eugene of Savoy and now contain museums concentrating on artwork from the Baroque period. Because the weather was being kind to us we decided to leave looking at the paintings for another time and just wandered round the gardens and the outside of the building.
On walking round to the front, there is a large fish pond, complete with a heron that flew three times round the pond before heading off towards the centre of Vienna.
From the main gate this is the view that the people from off the tourist coaches first see.

Definitely a biscuit tin picture!
From outside the main entrance we caught the tram to the centre of town.