First stop on the Vienna itinerary: the Spanish Riding School! Joe was such a good sport. He spent two and a half hours watching the Lipizzaners ride around in circles (something that could get pretty boring, even for an experienced rider) and then another hour on a tour. The Winter Riding School is a beautiful hall with two levels where spectators can peer over into the ring. Every morning, the public is allowed to watch “Morning Exercise”, 30-min training shifts of five horses each. There are over 70 Lipizzaner stallions at the Riding School, and another 100 or so at various training barns and facilities. Once a stallion becomes part of the school, he can never be sold. They take care of each stallion through retirement, which may last until the ripe old age of 40 (super old for a horse)!

Each horse also has their own rider, they never trade around. It takes more than a decade to become a “Rider” at the Riding School. Apprentices start with 1+ years riding exclusively on the lunge line (and doing all the chores); then they begin riding stallions that are already well trained, so that the horse can teach the rider…always under supervision, of course. After about three years the rider is given one stallion to work with, but the pair is still not allowed to perform. Another two years later, once the rider has proven that he can successfully train a stallion, he is given a few more stallions, still under supervision. Finally, if he is lucky, after another three to five years, he might become an Oberbereiter, or Senior Trainer. The attrition rate during the apprentice ship is huge.  Apparently, riders who already think they are pretty experienced don’t appreciate mucking stalls and not being allowed off a lunge line for several years. I can understand that.

Each stallion has two saddles and two bridles (one for training and one for performances). That is a lot of leather to clean! I don’t mind mucking crap…but cleaning tack is the worst! I probably won’t make it one week at the Spanishe Hofreitschule!

We spent a day at Schloss Schönbrunn, the summer residence of the Habsburgs, touring 40 of the 1441 rooms! Rain prevented us from really exploring all of the gardens and fountains, but it was still a pretty amazing place.

True confession coming up: I really enjoyed visiting the Zentralfriedhof (Central Cemetery). Creepy? Maybe…but not nearly as creepy as some of the graves we saw. Stuff right out of the movies! The Zentralfriedhof is one of Europe’s largest cemeteries and is in fact bigger than Vienna’s downtown. It also contains more graves (2.5+ million) than the actual population of Vienna. There is a huge church in the cemetery, as well as a shuttle bus to get visitors where they need to go.

Dr. Karl Leuger Gedächtniskirche

Most people go there to see the headstones of the big name composers: Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Strauss. Not Mozart though. He has a monument in the Zentralfriedhof, but not a grave. He was actually buried in an unmarked mass grave, of which the exact location is unknown, in a different cemetery.

Here is what also happens at Zentralfriedhof when your husband has over 3,000 “favorite songs” on iTunes: you end up visiting the grave of another famed Austrian musician: Falco.

It’s like he was looking right at us.

You know what happens after you spend some quality time with Falco in his place of peace? Your husband’s “absolute most favorite 3000 songs” list increases by three and now you have to listen to Falco sing in English…and German. I love you Joe…you and your thousands of songs!

Alright. Now that we’ve seen every side of Vienna…it’s time to hit the road again!