As it was to be sunny, albeit cool and brisk, I set off to visit the Schonbrun Palace and then drop off the bike at a local bike shop for boxing and shipping to Aaron in Hannover.

I mapped out a ride that would take me on a path along the Danube and then do a wide circle back towards Vienna and the Schonbrun Palace. At times I was well and truely passing through the back roads of the industrial suburbs, so it was not all that enjoyable. In total I clicked up about 40 km a lot of it on a well maintained gravel path.

This route demonstrated an obvious error on my last blog about the Danube. I stand corrected. What I described as a canal, is in fact just that. The Danube River does not pass anywhere near the old centre of Vienna. Oops! I found the real river today. It’s still not “blue”!

The Schonbrun Palace is yet again another awesome monument to privilege, wealth and decadence. Each seems if possible grander than Versailles. This summer residence has almost 1500 rooms!

In these past two years and my cycle adventures, I realize that tourists to a man, including me, are drawn to architectural wonders, created in the name of either his majesty or the messiah!

Jesus apparently said you can either have me or mammon. Well all I can say is that The Benedict Monks seemed to combine both without too much catholic guilt.

As I meander through these awesome edifices, true socialist that I am, I have continuous images of hungry, diseased peasants and serfs outside the fortifications working the land and crapping in the woods.

“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche”, exclaimed Marie Antoinette.

“Up the Workers” said Alexander Downer (or was that Bill Shorten)?

“Off with her head” said the Queen,

And after my time in Europe, all these famous quotations have real meaning.

The Schonbrun Palace and a minute part of the gardens

All pictures of Schonbrun Palace and Gardens.