Austria - day 2

We had originally planned to do Salzburg in one day, but then when I was looking at the sites we wanted to see, I saw that Hellbrunn Palace looked like something that could take a long time, so we decided to make it two days. There is also a zoo right there, and zoos always make Emma happy. So, day 2 was just Hellbrunn Palace and the zoo. We went to the grocery store that shared a parking lot with our hotel and picked up some sandwiches to take for a picnic at Hellbrunn, since it has extensive park land. Hellbrunn was built as a summer daytime palace for the Prince Archbishop. Nobody lived there, it was simply for entertaining.

We did the zoo first, so we could have our picnic at the right time. It's not a huge zoo, but bigger than what I expected. They have both exotic and domestic animals. We got there right when it opened, so it was quite peaceful for most of our visit. There were places to feed llamas, goats, and sheep, so we bought some "zoo food" for that. We also really enjoyed the little rainforest house, where tiny monkeys hopped around over your head. There was a spot where there were lemurs just out on the roofs, too.Max got peed on by a lemur. The picture on the left is just before the dirty deed.

After the zoo, we went over to the palace. First, we went to see the pavilion where Rolf & Liesel sing "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" I really wanted to jump across the benches, but it was locked. I'm guessing a lot of people have wanted to jump across the benches in there. There was a geocache around there somewhere, but we couldn't find it. :(

Next, we went to the trick fountains. You have to take a guided tour of that part. Luckily, there were enough English speakers in the tour that she conducted it in both English & German. the trick fountains were built as part of the entertain-y-ness. Not only are there the kinds of water features you would expect to see at a palace, but water sprays from hidden jets all over the park. The first part we saw was the Roman Theater (not really Roman, just built to look Roman) with the Archbishop's table. Every seat at the table except for the Archbishop's is rigged with water jets. Since nobody could leave the table until the Archbishop got up, they just had to sit there and get soaked. Lots of pictures to follow.

The Roman Theater

Emma got to be the Archbishop for the demo

Orpheus & Euridice

The Zodiac Fountain

Nobody expected the deer to spit!

One of the coolest bits was this little theater, which is powered entirely by water, even the organ you hear playing. The banging is people in the houses hammering stuff. It's supposed to represent daily life in an Austrian town of the time.

After the trick gardens, we went into the palace proper. Since it wasn't a residence, it was pretty small, for a palace. It would still be really big for a regular house.

View from the palace

After that, it was time for lunch. We grabbed our food and ate out on the grounds next to the playground. Em played for a bit, but it started to rain.  We went up to that little house on the hill that you can see in the picture above. It was actually originally built because a guest to the palace commented that the view would be better from the palace if there were a house on the hill. It is now a folk art museum.We came back down the hill and found this place. I could tell from the sign that it was for "cold water therapy," but I couldn't tell much else. Max & Em testified that it was indeed very cold. 

After that, we went back to the hotel. We did go back out a bit later to find a decoration for Max's hat and wander around old town for a bit. Then, we came back and went to bed, since the next morning was a very early one.

Emma says - The zoo was awesome. The zoo had animals. We got to feed said animals. The trick fountains were fun, because I got to stand there and watch everybody else get wet. I only got sprayed like once. I loved the deer head that sprayed everybody, because nobody expected it.