I’ve had the gorgeous picture of Schonbrunn Palace (I thought) as my Facebook background for around 6 months I think so was so excited to finally go there today. The day started, however, with a much needed run through one of the city’s large parks – Wurstelprater, or simply “Prater”. It is the location of an amusement park, including Vienna’s famous Giant Ferris Wheel, which is open all year round and boasts some of the best views of the city from the top. There is a large pedestrian-only area where locals typically run, bike, walk their dogs or exercise their horses(!). It was a dreary winter day in Vienna but I could still see the beauty in the park as I ran down a tree-lined street. And it had finally stopped raining! 6.5 miles later, it was time to start the day.

We had planned to go to Schonnbrunn and the zoo and then on our way visit an ice rink followed by dinner. Yes, Candace is a project manager 🙂 But again, the weather was not in our favor nor was the time. So we decided to ice skate first. Again, based on Yannick’s recommendation, we made our way to Engelmann Skate Rink in the 16th district. Well, it was definitely not the most picturesque of areas in Vienna. But we finally found the ice skating rink and were excited! Hmmmmmmm…my mom always told me that when you didn’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. But, if you’re reading this you’re interested in the truth so, it was an ice skating rink, and it was on the 4th floor rooftop of a building. Sounds promising, right? There is where the positives stop. We were disappointed because there wasn’t even a Christmas tree, no Christmas music and absolutely no view! But as always we managed to have fun anyway and we both stayed upright. But we needed some darned Christmas cheer(!) so we didn’t stay long.

Onward to Schonbrunn Palace and Christmas Market (Weihnachtsmarkt Schloss Schonbrunn). It was absolutely spectacular and looked just like the pictures! We got there a little before dark and were able to take some of my own. And the market was different than others we’d been to – much less crowded and very big and the wares were different. The Christmas tree lighting it all was wonderful as was the classical music playing from speakers throughout the square. Christmas Cheer!!   We wanted to check out the world-renowed Schonbrunn Zoo so made our way through the ornate and very well-kept gardens to the zoo where we found out that they were closing. No big deal, we found a lovely hotel lit by white lights to have a glass of wine. Things work out, right?

We had made dinner reservations at a traditional Viennese restaurant that was very close to our apartment because we’d been walking by it for days and it looked so warm and cozy. So we got dressed up (no jeans!), sang some Christmas tunes at the top of our lungs, and headed to our dinner. We had decided months before the trip to have one night where we both talked about the coming year and our goals and the things we wanted to accomplish. This would be the night we shared them. Again, I believe saying things out loud makes you just a bit more accountable and that’s what we were going for. We had ANOTHER amazing dinner – we split Tafelzpitz – which is boiled beef and a specialty in Vienna. I’d been wanting to try it all week. We also tried Kohlruladen – which is beef-stuff cabbage. Adventurous, aren’t we? Both meals were excellent. The beef was so tender that you didn’t need a knife and the potatoes were spectacular. We also shared an Austrian wine that you can easily get in the US – Gruner Veltlinger . Finally, who can forget dessert? Not us!  We had Curd crème dumplings with sugar crumbs and strawberry sauce. Does it sound strange!? Because it was a little slice of heaven.

But more than the meal, we shared ourselves and that’s what made it such a fantastic night. Another one! Me = grateful!