Austria
Bloresrestostravels
Austria 4 - Palace Esterházy and the Gala at Palais Schönburg
Tuesday, May 24, 2016Me! In words
Read Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3 and then come read about our fabulously wonderful last day in Austria. It began with a visit to The Esterházy Palace.
Palace Esterházy
The palace is a visual treat. Palace Esterházy's cellars go all the way back the 17th century. The wine producing here has now moved to a classy facility today, but the palace is still home to the largest wine museum of the country. It houses 700 exhibits, including the largest preserved wine barrel of the country and the oldest Baumpresse (an ancient Austrian basket wine press) in Burgenland. You can read my article on Austrian wines in the Huffington Post-India to get a better idea.
A brilliant guided tour around the palace saw us delve into its history, its gradual growth and construction and the several influences with each passing century. In fact, the royalty that resided here were greatly taken up Chinese artefacts and you will see a lot of these influences around.
The Palace also has a lovely little chapel which still houses the pipe organs of centuries ago. While these pipe organs were still functional till a while ago, the Palace authorities decided to record its music and play it during public visits, which you can see in the video below.
The underground museum of the ancient wine related artefacts will keep you engrossed as will the amazing curios and wine shop at the end of the tour. This time round, I made sure I was the first one out and on the bus! Click on the image below for some great pictures of the Palace!
The excessive wine over the 4 days got to most of us in the group and we just had to head out for some beer. After the gala at the palace, few places remained open and we managed to get a table for 8 for all of 45 minutes at the Salm Brau
The next day I had to leave the hotel early in the morning, another thing I plan to change in case I attend this Summit again. We were provided with City Airport Train tickets that would take us from the Wien Mitte station in Vienna, directly to the airport in 16 minutes flat. The Wien Mitte station is easily accessible from across Vienna. What I particularly loved was the fact that you could check in your luggage at the Wien Mitte train terminal and forget about it till your destination.
Austria was a fabulous four days and I have written quite a few
stories from the experience of them all. You can read them at the links
below. Additionally do click on the image above for some lovely images
of Vienna.
I flew back to Bangalore with Lufthansa via Vienna. The check in for Bangalore was extremely harried since the flight seemed to have been overbooked. A happy exchange of seats saw me find a place in the premium economy section with, ironically, an empty seat next to me.
Disclaimer: This trip to Austria was sponsored by AWB. The views expressed are personal and unbiased
Palace EsterházyThe palace is a visual treat. Palace Esterházy's cellars go all the way back the 17th century. The wine producing here has now moved to a classy facility today, but the palace is still home to the largest wine museum of the country. It houses 700 exhibits, including the largest preserved wine barrel of the country and the oldest Baumpresse (an ancient Austrian basket wine press) in Burgenland. You can read my article on Austrian wines in the Huffington Post-India to get a better idea.
A brilliant guided tour around the palace saw us delve into its history, its gradual growth and construction and the several influences with each passing century. In fact, the royalty that resided here were greatly taken up Chinese artefacts and you will see a lot of these influences around.
The Palace also has a lovely little chapel which still houses the pipe organs of centuries ago. While these pipe organs were still functional till a while ago, the Palace authorities decided to record its music and play it during public visits, which you can see in the video below.
The underground museum of the ancient wine related artefacts will keep you engrossed as will the amazing curios and wine shop at the end of the tour. This time round, I made sure I was the first one out and on the bus! Click on the image below for some great pictures of the Palace!
The last evening in Vienna was at theme based gala at the Palais Schönburg. 4 days of wine tasting brought to an end with some more wine and a lot fun. The quartet that played at the beginning of the event was the thing that musical memories are made of. Here is a short clip of it and some pictures of the gala.
Some of the very efficient organizing committee members of the AWMB who made the summit possible in the period clothing for the theme party
I made do with some props that were available. That is the Happy High Me!
The next day I had to leave the hotel early in the morning, another thing I plan to change in case I attend this Summit again. We were provided with City Airport Train tickets that would take us from the Wien Mitte station in Vienna, directly to the airport in 16 minutes flat. The Wien Mitte station is easily accessible from across Vienna. What I particularly loved was the fact that you could check in your luggage at the Wien Mitte train terminal and forget about it till your destination.
Inside the City Airport Train
In between two events we managed to squeeze in a quick visit to the famed Hotel Sacher and dug into the original Sacher Torte that you see below.
Sacher Torte
I flew back to Bangalore with Lufthansa via Vienna. The check in for Bangalore was extremely harried since the flight seemed to have been overbooked. A happy exchange of seats saw me find a place in the premium economy section with, ironically, an empty seat next to me.
Disclaimer: This trip to Austria was sponsored by AWB. The views expressed are personal and unbiased
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