Some Islands, Vienna, Wine, and a cameo by some piles of rock.

Hello people!
We're in the Czech Republic now, speaking to you from Znojmo.
Ok, on our last couple of days in Athens we did nothing, then we went on a three island cruise. We visited the islands of Poros, Hydra and Aegina.
All our photos here are from Hydra, since that was the prettiest. There were no petrol vehicles there that we could see, and everything was transported by donkey. We saw a washing machine being transported this way.

Here's the entrance to the port of Hydra, complete with parapets and cannons!


For all it's prettiness, there wasn't a great deal to actually do on Hydra. Here's my solution.



And another shot of Hydra. You can see the donkeys in the background, with these big wooden saddles.














After a quick 2 hour flight, we landed in Vienna, where we stayed for two nights at the Wombat Hostel. First day was spend at Schonbrun, the summer residence of the Hapsburg family during the days of the Austrian Empire. To say the least, they were nice digs. Here's the front door.




The Schonbrun also has it's own personal zoo (the Hapsburgs lived well). It claims to be the oldest zoo in Europe. It's a pretty cool zoo actually, complete with it's own panda.









Here's a shot of the backyard, the structure in the background is called the Gloriette, and is on the grounds of the Schonbrun. As far as we can tell, it serves not purpose other than to give the Hapsburgs an awesome place to eat lunch at and look at their house from.

The Palm House of Schonbrun, for the princess that just wants here own rainforest in Vienna.


And the Privy Garden, looking at the main building from the side.

We also went to the Hofburg, the winter residence, and also the seat of government. We don't have any pictures here though. The hofburg was bigger, much bigger, but not really as impressive.

Here's what the Viennese call their town hall btw.

Off to the Czech Republic, or the CZ, as us cool people call it. We caught a bus (btw, the ticket lady, useless) and mum came and picked us up from this little place called Pohorelice (as far as we could determine, it only had one traffic light, purely for the purpose of getting the school kids across the road safely).

Our first night was at Znojmo, and, of course, we went and sampled wine. We're staying with Pepa, mum's cousin, who is a wine maker by trade, and by hobbie. He took us to his hobby cellar, which is 300 years old and carved into sandstone, and fed us our body weight in fine wine and cheese. You can't actually see any barrels in that photo, but trust me, there were enough.

And our first ever guest appearance on this blog. Here we have mum, there's sand around her, and some large piles of rock in the background. We hope you enjoy.

Bye everyone! We'll keep you up to date with our going ons.

Bob and John