Still on Our Honeymoon... Vienna, Day 6 (Schõnbrunn Palace, Staatsoper)

My yin and I started off our second day in Vienna at one of the umpteen small bakeries that are all over the city. In fact, Austria seemed to be something of a bread nirvana, and I counted no less than three high-quality chains. I made it a mission to sample each of them over our time there, and I'm happy to report that each of them was excellent.

Tummies full, we hopped on the U-Bahn (Vienna's subway) and headed to the morning's main event, Schõnbrunn Palace:

Where, unsurprisingly, we were greeted by more statues of men clubbing one another:

For those who still remember their high school AP European class (i.e., no one), you will recall that Schõnbrunn was the summer palace of the Hapsburgs. Once comfortably outside the city, it now sits on the outskirts of Vienna and is greeted by more visitors each year than any other site in Austria. We went prepared to do our best sheep impersonation (in-animal-ation?), but although it was busy, I was pleasantly surprised to find it less crowded than Prague Castle the week before.

The only benchmark I have for Schõnbrunn is its French equivalent Versailles although in reality I'm really not sure if "equivalent" is the appropriate word. Unlike this journey, my trip to Paris more than a decade ago passed without so much as a single photo so I have no idea which palace was bigger, which was more opulent, or which was more beautiful.

But this is beside the point.

The point is that, as Gary Snyder once said (at least according to Dharma Bums), "Comparisons are odious." Suffice to say that Schõnbrunn is more impressive than any estate in America. It's fancier than Biltmore, it dwarfs Newport's famed mansions, and it even trumps Hearst Castle if for no other reason than it carries with it the incomprehensible weight of 400+ years of history. This estate has seen everything from imperial balls to honor Maria Theresa to the unbearable vanity and ankle-length hair of Franz Joseph's wife "Zizi" to Kennedy and Khrushchev's 1961 summit in Vienna. Walking through American palaces, one gets the sense of a nation trying to catch up to history; walking through Schõnbrunn one gets the sense of nation who not only has history knocking at its doorstep, but asks it to wait in the salon while the host makes his way from the other end of the building.

No pictures were allowed inside, presumably to keep the throngs of people moving at a reasonably quick pace, but my yin and I spent at least an hour listening to our audio guides and trying to wrap our heads around the fact that so few people could have so much: 

The arbor leading around the Privy Garden.

View of the Privy Garden.

View of the main garden and rear of palace.

View towards the Gloriette on the hill.

View from the Gloriette with Vienna in the background.

Of course no estate would be complete without those absurdly large statues that inevitably serves as lawn ornaments for the super-wealthy. This gave my yin and I perfect chance to indulge in our hobby of creating real life reenactments, which goes to show how ridiculous the difference is between the imagined ideal and the performative real:

If only we had our tripod, this would have been even better...

My best impression of Perseus.

For the record, there is also a zoo on the grounds, but not just a zoo. This was the first zoo (at least in Europe), and it is to the Hapsburgs' penchant for collecting the rare and exotic that we owe today's institution. Plus there was a labyrinth, which members of the court once used to stage clandestine meetings and trade in gossip about the ruling family.

By this point, my yin and I had spent hours walking around the grounds and were exhausted. We made our way back to the U-Bahn and hopped on, stopping on the way back to the studio to grab lunch and two tickets for Budapest. We recharged for a couple of hours before making our way to the night's main event:

Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera)

Incredibly, my yin had never been to the opera, and I took great pleasure in teasing her about it during the months leading up to our trip.  I would tell anyone who would listen that I was "making her go to the opera," and in turn she would reply, "I hate when you say that. It's not like I just fell off the turnip truck." When the night finally arrived, she proved me wrong once and for all:

And we had the best time, watching Fidelio, Beethoven's only opera, and exploring the various alcoves and dining areas during the intermission:

Suffice to say that she loved it: