After a long flight journey from Jakarta, Indonesia, we arrived in Vienna in the morning. We didn't stop to the hotel to save time, directly we went to the tourism places. Schönbrunn Palace as one of the World Cultural Heritage sites, located a few kilometres from central Vienna was our first destination. A baroque summer palace built in 18th century contains the authentically furnished residential & ceremonial rooms of the Imperial Family (Marie Antoinette’s childhood & Empress Maria Teresa). It's very hot almost mid day, we walked through the entrance gate to the huge yard surrounding by long buildings.
Two beautiful fountains were decorated the yard where we could take picture with the palace as the background. As the area coverage so wide, we had difficulty to take the whole scenery, only one side of the building and a fountain could be reached. Under the strong sunshine, we took pictures in front of the fountain which has beautiful statues in the middle of the pool. The fountain was surrounding by fresh green grass, my friend stepped on the grass to sit on the edge of Danube-Inn-Enns statues fountain. The other fountain had Galicia-Volhynia-Translyvania statue.
The tour leader kept calling us to follow the local guide, he said we still had time on the way out to take more picture. Entering the building we had to wait for the local guide to buy tickets and deposit big bags and backpacks as they're not allowed to bring to inside of the palace. There was a souvenir shop that sold souvenirs, snacks and drinks, so we could shop while waiting for the ticket. I put on one of the beautiful cap from the shop which was really matched to my blouse to take picture. My friend bought one of the caps to be worn to avoid the sunshine with “Vienna” picture or letter. The local guide gave us the earphone to enable us hearing her explanation well during the journey, she didn’t need to speak loudly to the group member. Firstly the local guide spoke English, then our tour leader translated to Indonesia as some tour members didn't speak English. As it's taken longer time, I asked the tour leader to stand near the tour members to translate directly to whom didn't understand the explanation.
Unfortunately we were not allowed to take picture at all in the palace, so I could not share you any picture of the rooms, painting, sculpture, statue, furniture and anything inside. Only 40 of the Schönbrunn Palace's 1,441 rooms were open to the public, they were enough to provide visitors with a sense of how magnificent the place. From the window, I could see the beautiful garden, it’s looked very neat and maintained well. The structure of the Baroque park layout was virtually untouched, the ancient techniques were still used for trimming its trees and bushes. I would like to rush to the garden as there was no photo object could be taken in the palace, unfortunately the local guide would like to share a complete story about the history. At the end of exploring the palace, there were some souvenir shops which made my tour friends excited. Actually I prefer to go to explore the garden soon, but I had to wait for the group.
A small rubber wheeled train and horse carriages could bring you around the palace if you don't want to walk. I heard it’s only operated during summer, not enough time for us to ride them. I didn’t know where the transportation route would go, but I passed them went walking on the yard. Maybe they would go to the other part of the palace which’s located crossed the garden. For many tourists, a ride with the two-horse carriage is one of the highlights, it’s called flacker. If you would like to enjoy the journey, you should ask the flacker coach for a "porcelain ride", which is a particularly calm and steady drive, it was provided long ago to transport precious porcelain safely from one place to another.
Walking to the garden was quite far, especially under the sunshine, lucky I was wearing a cap. Sunglasses would help too, unfortunately I didn't bring them. We found the beautiful roses arch aisle as the sunshine shade, the red roses were amazing, it’s very big and layering. My friend took many pictures there with various poses, until I beg them to take my picture. After waiting a few minutes I decided to leave them unless I could not explore the big garden.
The spectacular sculpted garden is called the Great Parterre. Many colorful flowers arranged beautifully on the spacious garden. Most of our tour friends were going back while I went to the garden. Lucky I met our tour guide who helped me to take picture with the palace as the background. He could not take my picture with the garden as it's against the sunshine. I ran to the middle of the garden to be able to take the garden as my background, unfortunately nobody there to help me taking my picture. With my iphone, I tried to do selfie, the result was not too good, because I was not used to it. With both my pocket camera and iphone, I took many pictures to record the wonderful scenery. One of them was posted on the top of this article which shows the beautiful garden with the back of the palace, residence of the Habsburg emperors from 18th century to 1918.
On the other end of the French garden actually was very interesting, I pushed to take the picture although it's too far and against the sun light. I’m happy as the result was quite good to see the garden axis points towards a 60-metre-high hill, which since 1775 has been crowned by the Gloriette structure. I really didn’t have time to walk or even run to the edge of the garden where we could see nearer to the Neptune Fountain and Gloriette in the background. No time for us to exploring other side of the garden such as Roman ruin, palm house, zoo, etc.
A particular pleasure is simply wandering the numerous paths alongside the park's flower beds while trying to spot all 44 of its 18th-century mythological marble sculptures. I took one of the beautiful sculptures displayed “Abduction of Helena”. The tour leader shouted to call me as I was the last one in the garden. Although it's hot, I love staying longer in the garden, I still wanted to take more picture.
I had to run back to gather with our group who had been at the front yard of the palace. On the way back to the gate, I still had a chance to help my friend taking picture in front of the beautiful pool. Near to the entrance gate, there was a 3D steel map of the palace, which described the whole area of the palace, most of them hadn't been explored. While waiting for the bus at the front of the gate, a golden man imitated Mozart was standing on the golden box. He would change pose if we gave him money, my friend put a coin on the golden tin in front of him to take a picture with him. He even kissed my friend’s hand to give honour and also posed gracefully for the photo. It’s very hot, I could not imagine how he could stand under the very strong sunshine covering the whole body with golden paint, wearing thick wardrobes. It must be very suffering, hot and burnt, what's a life.
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