Spanish Riding School morning exercises--check out those chandeliers! This is also the arena where they stage their perfomances--it's incredibly elegant for a horse stable, no? But then the Lipizzaners were the royal horses of the Habsburg family and the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire for centuries. They house 72 stallions at the Hofburg Palace right in the heart of old- town Vienna and they all come from the Austrian Lipizzaner stud farm at Piber. It was very interesting to learn about their history and how it operates today as well as to see these beautiful animals (and their riders) in action. A good day!