The Naschmarkt and Schönbrunn

We're nearing the end of our time in Vienna, which has been very nice. I'll post some photos and updates today and tomorrow.

Last weekend we went to the Naschmarkt, the large, open-air market where you can get just about any food you might want.


We picked up a few items we hadn't found yet in Strasbourg (black beans and sweet Indonesian soy sauce among them) and generally marveled at all the produce, spices, treats, and people there.


Although we're in a great location, especially for the work I had to do here, Vienna is large enough that we use the subway almost every day. Sophie loves riding on the "choo-choo trains," especially since the station near us lets us first ride an elevator ("Hold my hand, daddy. I won't be scared."), then an escalator. Here are a few photos waiting on the platform for the next train.



These were taken the day we went to Schönbrunn, the Habsburgs' summer palace that used to be in the country but is now within the city limits.



We walked around the grounds a little before visiting the former Imperial Menagerie, now the Tiergarten (zoo), which claims to be the oldest in the world (opened to "respectably-dressed" visitors since 1778). Here are a few shots on the palace grounds:




Inside the zoo, Sophie took to the rhinos first, enjoyed the penguins, watched the tiger sleep, found the panda just a touch rude for refusing to face us, and thought the koala was cute if petite. Here she is with the rhinos (really, I'm trying to get her to look at the animals and stop insisting on talking about their poop):


And here she is with the penguins, who really seemed to understand her (although their poop remained a mystery):


Sophie's always been a talker, but now she's reached that stage during which she is quite insistent that you listen to her story--all of it, in all of its details--and concentrate on nothing else. Here she's telling me all about the animals we've already seen (and about their poop, too, no doubt):


No visit to the zoo, we're learning (or more likely, re-learning, since we were probably like this, too), is complete without some fake animals, too. First, the fiberglass one (only 0.50 €) . . .

. . . and then the concrete one (free!):


After a long day of palace grounds- and zoo-visiting, Sophie was ready to go back home on the subway. She wanted to sit on a seat by herself, and agreed to pose for a photo to help us all remember this important first: