Lipizzaner

This morning (Sunday 8th Oct) we rode our bikes into the Old Town of Vienna, known as Innere Stadt, to the Spanish Riding School.

The world-famous performances by the Lipizzans – the Ballet of the White Stallions – take place in the unique, baroque Winter Riding School at Hofburg Palace, built under Charles VI. These performances are the result of years of training for the rider and their Lipizzans.

From the young, boisterous stallions to the fully trained School Stallions, they enchant the audience with their performance in the School Quadrille, in the Schools on and above the ground and on the Long Reins.

source: www.srs.at

We couldn’t book our tickets so we turned up hoping that we could purchase them on the day - on arrival we were told it was fully booked but we were put on a wait list along with two others. We had to wait until a minute before the show started to find out if there were seats available - luckily there were and we had great seats to view the horses and riders up close. It was truly fantastic, even Andy found the performances amazing - both the horses and riders discipline and skill were on show. The horses were beautiful, but also you could see they were intelligent and strong.

source: www.wien.info

Fun fact : The Lipizzaner stallions are not born with the famous white coat, but turn that colour after six to nine years. Only a very few retain a dark coat.