These pictures are from June. I kept waiting until we had the video we took to upload, but that just kept being put off… so finally, we decided to go on a date since we haven’t done that in awhile, and when the new baby comes that will just make it even more difficult to find a night out alone!
There is a restaurant near our home called Plachutta that has painted cows in the front. We have been wanting to try it, because who doesn’t want to go eat beef at a restaurant with strawberry painted cows?
This turned out to be quite a nice place – as evidenced by the butter they brought each of us with ICE in the dish to keep it cold. They don’t use ice in their drinks here, so we rarely see ice. To see it in our butter was practically the highlight of my evening!
Here we are trying to decipher the menu. It is a restuarant known for its specialty – of course, beef. There was a helpful diagram of a cow to help us determine which cut of meat to order. Interesting….
This food was AWESOME. The cuts of beef were cooked in a soup, with flavorful broth and vegetables. It also came with pans and pans of side dishes – fried potatoes, spinach, cabbage, and a variety of sauces to put on the meat. Wow. I loved all the copper pans.
A sampling of the food. Funny to say, the meat was amazing, but the next best thing was the spinach! It was soooo good.
And of course, dessert. Chris got a berry ice cream dish, and I went for the chocolate mousse, my favorite. I don’t know what the little fruits are called, I have gotten them many times with desserts, and they look like orange cherry tomatoes. They are pretty good, but I can’t describe the taste, it is very unique.
Here I am with the beer tap cow in front of the restuarant. They change the painting on the cows for each season, it is fun to wait and see how they will paint them next.
We headed over to the Schonbrunn for a free outdoor concert by the Vienna Philharmonic, which will probably be the only time we hear them because their actual concerts are quite expensive!
Here is the stage set up in the gardens.
Look at all the people. I think all of Vienna showed up. We found out later that tons of our friends were there, but how could you find anyone in these crowds?
We walked up to the hill to see if we could find a nice place to sit. Click on the picture so you can really appreciate how many people were there… Most people seemed to be there just to drink and talk though, and there were no speakers on the hill, so we headed back down to the palace.
Close up of the crazy crowds we headed back into!
We ended up in a place where the security guards told us we couldn’t go because it was full. How can they tell it is full? The whole place looked like this!
The Philharmonic was playing a few select pieces from Star Wars, so we ran into some Storm Troopers at the concert. Too funny.
We finally found a spot closer to the speakers so we could actually hear the music instead of just people talking! Here is a closeup of the stage with the Gloriette behind it. I can’t believe they set all this up for one night. I have learned a few things about where to stand if I ever get to go to the free concert again! It really was a neat experience though, and I am so glad we decided to go. The music was beautiful, and it was a very unique evening out!
Here is the video where you can watch the Vienna Philharmonic play some music from Star Wars. The best part is all the people in the video holding up their cameras!
