Spanish Riding School

I wanted to go to see the Lipizzaner Horses so Ian & I went off in the direction of the Hofburg Palace

We managed to get tickets to a morning performance it was excellent. I was very excited waiting for the horses to appear. They were perfection and the finale school quadrille was just superb. The elegant white Lipizzaner horses are all stallions and when they are born have dark or black skins. They only turn white around the age of 4-6 years. We were shown all the stages of training and the varying ages of the stallions and were lucky enough to get to see them in the stable yard across the road as well. The whole thing was of course set to music with the inevitable Blue Danube taking centre stage and finishing off with much clapping along to the Radetzky march as we all filed out of the school.

Spanish Riding School

Sunday Night

We decided that it would be easier to have dinner the hotel and as it had started to rain seemed like a good idea. For hotel food it was good although they were trying to do an Austrian Italian fusion which in my case did not work out. It was rather strange, but we enjoyed a Prosecco and a good bottle of Zwiegelt (Good Fusion). We then got in a taxi and went to the Sacher hotel where we had our dessert, the famous Sacher torte with whipped cream followed by coffee, which was consumed in sumptous surroundings with the most charming waiting staff. We then dodged the rain drops and ran over the road to the Opera House.

The Staatsoper

Ballet Premiere

We were lucky to get tickets to a Ballet Premiere in the State Opera House on the Sunday night & whilst in danger of getting a nose bleed from the height we had good seats and a good view. Not being experts on dance & ballet we enjoyed it but thought that in places it needed to be a bit more polished. I found a review on the internet the next day and they said the same as we did so perhaps we understand more than we thought we did. Even Ian was not put off by the men in tights and it was just incredible to be at a premiere in Vienna.

Chandeliers

A selection of the many chandeliers we saw over the weekend in the Musikverein, the State Opera and the Spanish Riding school. The ring shaped one is in the Staatoper and weighs 17 tons. My favorite one is in the Spanish riding school.

Autumn Weekend

Saturday morning saw us up at 5.45, it was a struggle but we managed it. We went to the National Trust Estate Ashridge to see the deer rut.
As we drove along the road through the estate there was, looming out of the gloom standing on a high bank in all its majestic splendor a huge Fallow deer Stag.
The promise of a bright, frosty, Sunny morning we had hoped for did not materialise, but we did get to see some of the Stags fighting and displaying for their lady friends. We were there for 2 hours or so and had a good walk and saw quite a few deer but it was not as good as in previous years. I think that the main rut had happened earlier in the month or maybe it had not started at Ashridge quite yet.

Sunday morning saw us out of our bed early again 7am. Well its early for a non school day! We went down to the South coast near Portsmouth for an RSPB walk at Tichfield Haven. Today was the bright, sunny, frosty morning we had hoped for yesterday. No frost in Marlow but out towards Reading the fields were white. There were 14 of us on the walk and we were all wrapped up in many layers of clothing as it was very nippy. An enjoyable morning started with the promise of Bearded Tits (No luck) and we saw some huge Grey Mullet in the river, about 70 Turnstones on the beach and some one saw 3 eider ducks fly over and we were not into the reserve yet.
It was a really lovely location for a nice day out, at 7am we had been sorely tempted to stay at home but we so glad that we made the effort to go. A few birds got added to our life list the best one being the Water Rail which was in good view for a long time. We also had a good view of 2 kingfishers sitting on a fence. Sitting in the sun to eat our lunch overlooking the estuary was just lovely it was very warm and a few of the layers of clothing got shed. We all then went around the other side of the reserve where we saw the Water Rail and the Kingfishers by this time all the "outdoor clothing had been shed" it was very sunny and great to be on the coast. To wind things up we found a pub (not the best in the world) but we sat outside in the sun watching the sea and yachts in the Estuary. Perfick!