Vienna

After a difficult night's sleep, we arrived in Vienna (although late). We were a bit tired and hungry but excited to tour another great European Capital. We had to quickly revamp our full itinerary to make sure that there would be time to see the top-priority things. It was particularly interesting to arrive in Vienna and tour the city as my Grandma had not too many years ago. Before Dustin and I left for Austria, Grandma told me about the various places she had visited -- many of the same places we were also planning on visiting. So, it is (and was!) neat to have that special connection.

We quickly got on the metro and zipped into town, getting off at St. Stephen's Cathedral. We actually did not go in -- but did take a picture! Here I am scoping out the options for the day in in front of the cathedral...

Our first stop was the Lipizzaner Stallions of the Spanish Riding School. We were late -- we only got to watch their morning routine for 30 minutes before they closed up shop. It was long enough, however! Dustin's allergies went wild with the horses and the confined space. He was sneezing and wheezing for the rest of the morning and afternoon. The practice space is a little strange -- if you imagine a beautiful and ornate dancing hall with chandeliers, carved ceilings and walls, and classical music playing in the background, you get a feel for the setting. Rather than parquet floors, however, there is sawdust and horse manure. Young men are riding around on their special horses (doing, I am sure, very special things -- but I am afraid that I don't know enough about horses to know just how special!). It was just as interesting to take in the atmosphere as it was to watch the horses prancing about. Below is a quick video of the horses...

After a quick stop at the horses, we went on to the Hofburg Palace, Treasury, and Silver Collection. The last Austrian Royal family lived at the Hofburg palace during most of the year and summered at the Schonbrunn Palace. The tour started with the Silver collections... I have never seen so much silver and gold eating utensils, candle stick holders, chandeliers (for candles); crystal vases, goblets, and glasses; and china in maybe 100 different patterns -- all complete sets. These were on display in a dizzying array of rooms. I got lost in all of the flatware -- literally. There were too many rooms and too many objects that looked similar. So much extravagance... Queen Marie Antoinette was an Austrian princess in this family -- you see where she got the "let them eat cake" attitude -- it would be hard to imagine anybody so poor as to have only one set of anything, let alone none at all. I was marginally disgusted with the over-the-topness of it all, but I can only imagine what is in the White House's own sliver/crystal/china treasury. Anyway...

Next were the imperial apartments. The Hofburg palace is overburdensomely large because no new king/queen would live in the apartments of the former ruler. So, more building had to commence. The Hofburg Palace is HUGE. I cannot imagine being a servant back in the day. It was typical for the Palace to feed 3,000 people each day -- that is how many people it took to keep things running. We only saw the rooms of the last Emperor and his family: Emperor Franz Josef. His rooms were "sparse" - particularly as compared to the rest of the rooms. His wife, Sissy (Elisabeth "Sis(s)i" von Wittelsbach) was a crazy lady. She was originally from Germany (Bavaria). People talk about her as the 1900s version of Princess Di. She was a tragic character -- unhappy to be married (at 16 or some young age) to Franz Joseph (who supposedly adored her). She worked out incessantly, ate rarely, was depressed and hated the public and court life, and was assassinated. She now has a sort of cultish status amongst people -- mostly because she was such a dramatic narcissist (as many commentators have labeled her). She also wrote a number of sad poems and stories about her life, adding to her status. Apparently, a number of movies have been made about her -- I must say that learning about her piqued my curiosity. I am going to read a bit more about her...

The final stop at the Palace was the Treasury. This is where the crown jewels, sacred objects, and items of great import are kept and put on display. It was another bout of "oh my goodness" -- lots of gems, jewels, intricately woven and sewn garments, and the ever important relics. In fact, we saw (supposedly) one of the nails that Christ was hung on the cross from and a piece of wood from the actual cross complete with nail marks. Regardless of whether or not they are actually those items or not, I was moved. If not the real thing, than a really old thing -- and probably somewhat similar to what Christ would have encountered.

Before leaving the city center, we looked around the palace grounds a short bit. Here are a couple of pictures... The first one is me with some of the Palace gardens in back of me. The second one is of Dustin -- on the left side of the picture are some original Roman ruins.

From Hofburg, we took the metro (again, one cannot help but be impressed with the mass transit here in Europe. If we are so worried about gas prices, maybe we should stop driving so much and instead develop good mass transit?) to Schonbrunn Palace. This was my favorite stop of the day. The Palace was beautiful, the tour (and audioguide) were informative and interesting, and the setting was picturesque. If planning a trip to Vienna and only wanting to make one palace tour, I would recommend the Schonbrunn way over the Hofburg.

The Schobrunn Palace was basically a repeat of the Hofburg, just better. The best part was the gardens, located in the back of the palace and spanning a huge number of acres. There were little paths everywhere, people strolling about, getting their running in, talking to one another on benches -- it was a perfect park setting... save, of course, the huge palaces bookending the park. It was fun just to roam about and watch people.

Here are some pics... the first is Schonbrunn from the front. Next are a couple of views from the back of the palace (the first is with Dustin and the second is from the top of the hill in back of the palace). The next couple of pictures are of the gardens...





After a full day of touring about Palaces and Gardens, we had three more stops to make: dinner, the Vienna Opera, and the Sacher Resturant. For dinner, we used Rick Steves as our guide and went to a PCC on steroids. For those of you not familiar with PCC, it is a natural food market where you can buy really good-for-you and good-tasting food from a deli. Well, we were pretty hungry and loaded our plates (they sell the food here by the plate) as full as they would go with veggies and salads... Needless to say, our eyes were bigger than our stomachs, and we could not finish everything. With me almost asleep in my chair and both of us plum exhausted, we decided to go to the opera where you have to stand for three hours... Another one of our bright ideas!

The opera house was amazing. We got there an hour early and got tickets for 3 euros each... It was pretty fun to watch people stream into this very beautiful building wearing their finest. We were not in top form -- no showers, walking all day long, and carrying our bags left us a little worse for wear. We didn't care - much. The opera started, and it was quite a funny one. But no more than half an hour into it and I was almost asleep again. So, we made a graceful exit (heck - for three euros, we more than got our money's worth) and headed across the street to the Sacher Hotel. Here are some pics of the opera... the first is looking from the stage to the seating areas. I am in the orange shirt leaning over the balcony on the far left. The second is of Dustin and me looking out and down to the stage (which I don't think is visible).

On to the final stop before bed... the Sacher Hotel, home of the world-famous Sacher Torte. We each had a glass of wine and split the Sacher dessert tray for two. What a treat! Sacher Torte was created in the 1800s and is a dry chocolate cake. I had heard of it occasionally and am glad that I got the chance to partake of the world-famous treat. It was a bit dry but completely rectified with a (large) dollop of whip cream.

After our full day of traveling and little sleep the night before (on the train), we made it to Wombat's Vienna, our youth hostel for the night. It is a youth hostel -- complete with its own bar. So, as you can imagine, our desired night of peaceful sleep was anything but that...