After spending our morning visiting the Sisi Museum, we decided to take a walk to the Imperial Crypt to check out the royal burial sites. It was in the basement of a pretty nondescript church, which was surprising given the massive cathedral in the center of town. And whenever anything is in the basement it reminds me of Pee Wee’s Big Adventure and I’m on the lookout for long winded tour guides and stolen bikes! The trip to the basement was creepy.

Exploring the burial vaults of the Hapsburgs

But the crypts were fantastic.

The ones with crowns were my favorites, obviously.

I wear my crown everyday!

And let me just say I have completely reassessed my own burial plans after viewing some of these!

Our next site was the Imperial Treasury but along the way we passed a butterfly house. Jenni wanted to stop so we got tickets and headed inside. The temperature inside the glasshouse was about 950 degrees and there were lush tropical plants and waterfalls throughout.

A bit of the tropics in Vienna

We also saw a few butterflies, though they all looked alike to me and they weren’t as colorful as I’d expected. In fact they looked a bit like giant moths.

Big butterfly that looks like a giant moth

The Austrians aren’t real big on signage so we wandered about the Hofburg Palace looking for the entrance to the Imperial Treasury.

No idea what this says, but it’s very intimidating!

This wasn’t a bad thing, since there was another Christmas market set up in one of the squares and you know what that means… hot wine!

I love Christmas Markets!

Also waffles.

Lunch!

After lunch we finally found the treasury. The jewels were fantastic.

Why don’t more people have scepters? And orbs? So pretty!

And so were the robes.

There were a lot of other treasures, though I was slightly more impressed with the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. Afterwards we took the metro back to the Hilton Plaza hotel and picked up our bags to move them to the Hilton Vienna, a larger hotel that was across the street from the City Airport Train terminal. The treats in my room were delicious, but I was sad they didn’t leave me a bottle of wine like the last Hilton!

The benefits of diamond status

We had a few snacks in the executive lounge and then headed out to Stephansplatz for another Christmas market.

Hot wine!

This one was in the shadow of the Stephansdom, one of the tallest churches in the world.

Stephansdom

We picked up a few souvenirs, dropped them off at the hotel, and then went to Bieramt for dinner. It’s a local restaurant? Pub? Dining establishment? It’s all in German so it’s hard to say! But it felt like a pub and we sat at a table with a local family who spoke very good English and were able to explain the silverware situation as well as the basket of pretzels to us.

Delaney and I ordered the Käsespätzle which was even better than I’d anticipated. Jenni ordered the beef soup and tried the pretzels. She didn’t care for hers, but eating in Europe with her restricted diet is always a challenge.

I would have taken a picture of my spaetzel, but it was there one minute and devoured the next.

Big day tomorrow with a visit to the Summer Palace. Wish you were here!