Vienna - Our first day

From today I am starting to scrap our summer holiday photos. I will be working 3 albums simultaneously. So I will be posting 3 layouts every time. The photos in the layouts will be mostly similar, with some differences depending on whose album it is. The journalling will be identical on all 3 layouts. And I am going to try and fit as many photos as I can on each layout! This is what you can expect from me over the next few weeks till I am finished with the holiday photographs.

First layout done with CS World Travel kit. Second layout with CS Journeys kit. And third layout done with a Scrapologie kit. I have also used Art Warehouse stickers, some metallic stickers, BG Rub ons, chipboard accents and iridescent acrylic paints.

2^nd August 2007: After a really interesting and fun overnight train ride (sleeper coaches were a first for everyone except me), from Milano to Vienna Sudbanhof, we met up with the Singh family in the lobby of the Vienna Marriott. After unpacking we walked to the Opera House but were 4 minutes too late for the 11 am tour! If only Ricky had listened to Mini and not walked around the Opera House… so we continued towards the Hofburg Complex to try and kill one hour and make the next tour. We stopped on the way for a photo with Goethe's statue. At the Hofburg complex we went in to see the butterfly house. It is small but extremely pretty. If you like nature, it is definitely worth a visit.

We then returned to the Opera House and met up with the Singh’s for the 12 am tour. Some parts of the Opera House are very grand but other parts, destroyed during WWII and rebuilt later, are more modern and linear. I really liked how they took us back stage so we could see it from the perspective of the actors.

We had lunch at the Sacher Hotel with the mandatory Sacher Torte for dessert. Then we walked back to the Hofburg complex to see the Kaiser Apartments & the Sisi Museum. I was expecting more grandeur in the apartments but apparently neither Emperor Franz Josef nor his Empress Elizabeth (or Sisi, as she was affectionately called) had very flamboyant tastes. What was singular was the exercise room and equipment the Empress Sisi had. She was figure conscious and worked out daily to maintain her waistline. Quite unheard of in those days!

After seeing these two venues we were all so tired we could hardly drag our feet! So we left the Singh’s to see the Imperial Treasury and returned to the hotel. After naps and showers, we went down for our ‘Welcome’ dinner and to meet the other families joining us on this tour of the Imperial cities of Vienna, Salzburg & Prague.

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