Vienna

Little Ms birthday wish was to see Pandas (J went to see otters at Shepreth) so we have been to the Tiergarten in Vienna (the closest Pandas to Cambridge other than Berlin). She invite one friend from school - which worked cos we mentioned it to them as a pie in the sky idea and they thought it a great idea so their whole family came too. It was great to get to know them better. A good time was had by all, although little M was a bit difficult at times.
The Pandas did the right thing and ate bamboo, walked around a bit, wee'd and generally looked like pandas. They were pretty cool actually. Vienna zoo's other big attraction is that other famous not moving plant eating animal... the koala! Irreverant Australians were roundly ssshuusshed by the awe inspired Austrians gazing devotedly at snoozing koalas - they were worried we would wake them up - as if!! Tiergarten was pretty good. Deserted in the morning, lovely wander around, then suddenly PACKED in the afternoon. Turned out to be some childrens day or something (we understood very little), think they all went to church in the morning then off to zoo for the afternoon. It was quite a nice day, about 8 degrees - quite a contrast to the usual deep snow expected at this time of year. We were very lucky with the weather the whole trip.
On the 2nd day we went to town to see the cathedral and on to the museums via a walk through the streets and park. Really lots of beautiful buildings. Little M chose to go to a Medicin sans frontiers display on refugee camps at the special childrens activity centre in the Vienna museum quarter (I know, but what can you do!). The other kids werent having any of that so little and big M went off to learn about refugees. She was very interested and involved, I cant say I know quite what to make of that but other than refusing to engage in eye contact with her guide (being the only English speakers there we had one to one guide) she took it all in and was quite informed. They were very impressed that she actually knew how a pit toilet worked (sheltered european kids in general). And we learnt you could use sand or stones instead of toilet paper, but neither of us impresssed with those options! Kids were exhausted after all that so back to our flats. We had a great place to stay, 2 flats one over the other (best for thundering elephants to play in top flat) with good location near U-bahn and plenty of space. One tip is dont arrive in Vienna on a Sunday as NOTHING is open, you can only buy food to eat at the airport!! Problem if you are self-catering! Thankfully our guide book had told us this so we had some supplies.

Third day R took J to armory for a break from excess little girls. They had a great time away all day. The others went to see the famous clock where figures march across the face at noon - pretty impressive, the figures are HUGE and it takes 15 minutes to complete this show. Then we went to a park to find that most important of all features - a playground, on to a coffee shop catering for kids, tho in general a little younger than ours. And so to the end of the day again. The most important adult accomplishments were that we a) drank our full VERY LARGE bottle of gin and b) we only bought 1 small soft toy for the kids as part of the birthday outing as our Austrian souveniers + a few postcards. The $5 backpackers have nothing on us for cheap tourism! We came and went via Dusseldorf which was a bit of a drag but saved us leaving at 5am in the morning which we all appreciated. And that was Vienna.