Vienna Part 6 ~The National Library

Reinthaler’s Beisl

One of our tour guides suggested that to find a more authentic good Austrian restaurant we should stay off the large streets and follow some of the narrower side streets in Vienna. We took her advice and found Reinthaler’s Beisl after our tour of Schönbrunn Palace on Friday morning, March 6th.

At first we were sharing a table with an older woman who was finishing up her lunch. The restaurant was filled with (from what we could tell) locals not tourists.

We shared an order of schnitzel and it was the perfect amount for us after our ‘appetizer’ of apple strudel at the Palace.

This print above was in the Public Domain so I’m sharing it here. It’s an old and very cool print of the outside of the National Library of Austria in Vienna.

I took this photo above as we passed the library on our carriage ride. I didn’t know as we passed that this was the library.

After our great lunch we ventured out on foot to find the library. After a few twists and turns we made it. We got a senior discount for entry.

It was a jaw dropping experience to walk around and take it all in. If you would like to learn more click on this link.

Europe’s largest Baroque library houses over 200,000 historic books on its richly decorated wooden shelves. The State Hall is rightly one of the most beautiful library rooms in the world.

Secret bookshelf doors were a fun surprise, too.

We were glad we could visit this beautiful library.

After the library we made our way to the designated bus shuttle service that would take us back to the river boat. We would leave Vienna for our final leg back to Budapest on this evening.

Al Fresco, Chef’s Table and Jimmy’s

This is my River cruise Food post, three of our special dinner evenings and other meals on board the AmaMagna. When you board the boat at the beginning of the cruise you can choose and make reservations at these special dinners that serve fewer folk than the larger Journeys Restaurant. The specialty restaurants are Al Fresco, Jimmy’s and The Chef’s Table. You need a reservation for these restaurants at the dinner hour. Journey’s Restaurant is always open to everyone without a reservation. Lunches are available at all the restaurants except for The Chefs Table. You will never go hungry on a river cruise!

These meals were from March 4th to the 7th.

We were seated alone for the Al Fresco Dinner (which was a disappointment) so I took more photos of the food we ate.

The following night we enjoyed the Sip and Sail hour before our meal at the Chef’s Table. Sip and Sail was a daily event an hour before dinner.

For The Chef’s Table we sat with a couple from Texas. They were regular cruisers.

Here are other fun desserts and savory dishes we had on board.

On our last night we had dinner at Jimmy’s Restaurant.

Weinerschnitzel

Back to the Present:

All our kids are here for the weekend to celebrate. Our Westside kids arrived on Friday. Today is Saturday April 18th, this afternoon we have JJ’s Birthday Party. Tonight we will have a full house for dinner to celebrate our Son-In-Law, Andrew’s birthday, too. We like to pack it in when we are all together. We will be together at church tomorrow morning and then our Westside kids will drive home.

Hope your week has gone well. Thanks for visiting.