Vienna

I spent this past weekend in Vienna, Austria. The city was absolutely amazing. :)

First, let me share a little observation... I've noticed that the smoke alarm goes off kind of a lot while I'm at the airport... which is kind of weird. While I was waiting for my flight to Vienna, the smoke alarm went off again... I finally figured out why. I went to the bathroom pretty soon after the smoke alarm went off, and it smelled terribly of smoke. I found a cigarette in the toilet. Lovely. The funny thing is that there are smoke detectors above every single stall, to prevent just this. Hello?? Anyways, so now I know why the smoke detectors are always going off. A lot of Europe still smokes, although they are trying to ban it slowly. There are still smoking rooms in some airports (Vienna included). I can't even imagine going into one of those places. I hate cigarette smoke to start with, but the smoke in those rooms is so thick that you can hardly see through them! Yuck! Anyways...

My flight was delayed two hours, so I didn't get in until after midnight. Usually, in new cities, I really enjoy trying to figure out the public transportation, however, at this hour, I felt like it might be a good idea to just spring for a taxi. I arrived at my hotel, the Johann Strauss Hotel (how cute!), and was really happy with the location and the accomodations. I've been SO lucky with hotels since I moved here (okay, except Sevilla - sorry, Michelle!).

I woke up around 9 the next morning, and went out to see the sights! The first thing I saw was the family crypt of the Hapsburg family, the royal family of Austria... for generations, they've all been buried in this underground crypt. Freaky, but kind of cool at the same time. :) The way that the caskets were decorated was amazing!


Example of one of the really elaborate tombs


Probably the most visited of the tombs - the big one was King Franz Josef's, and the one on the far side is his famous wife "Sisi"'s tomb

After the tomb visit, I spent a few hours touring the family home, Hofburg Palace. No pictures were allowed, but this place was amazing. I've been reading a lot of books from the time that this palace was in use, so it was super interesting to see the books come to life in the queen's old rooms and other places that have been mentioned in my books. :)

The outside of the palace

The highlight of my trip was the opera house. This place is one of the most famous music halls in the world. Unfortunately, it was heavily bombed during WWII, and only 25% of what is there now is original, but it is still impressive. I took a formal tour, and also went back later that evening to see a performance. I've never been to an opera, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. The cool thing was that while the opera was sung in its original language (Italian), there were translation boxes in front of every seat, so I knew what was going on the whole time. I saw Don Carlos, and ended up loving every minute of the 3 hour+ performance! :) It was amazing! :) I was pretty lucky in my seat companion - I sat next to an older woman who just happens to be an opera expert... she goes to the opera about 100 times per year. When she found out that this was my first time, she was shocked. She told me I had picked a really good night to come - this had been one of the very best performances she had ever seen. Well, lucky me! :)

The outside of the opera house

One of the orignal rooms of the opera house

Vienna, and I should really say ALL of Europe, is absolutely gorgeous at Christmas-time. The picture below doesn't really do it justice, but there are beautiful Christmas lights hanging everywhere! It really is getting me into the Christmas spirit. :)

Christmas lights at night

Before the opera on Saturday night, I toured the Belvedere Palace, which was a prince's palace in Vienna (man, people sure had money those days!). Anyways, it's been converted to an art museum, so it was a really cool setting to get to see some amazing art. There were some pieces by the French sculptor, Rodin (the guy that did "the Thinker"), which I really enjoyed.

Outside the Belvedere Palace

I got back pretty late from the opera, so I just crashed. Sunday morning, I got up around 9 again (oh, how my internal clock has changed since I moved here - no more 6 am weekends!), and hit the town. I started with the Kunsthistorische Musuem, which has all of the Hapsburgs' art in it... the art was impressive, but I enjoyed just the actual building even more. Here are some pics:

The entryway... it had a hole that looks up to an interior dome, kind of like the Parthenon in Rome... very beautiful!

I was kind of a bum after that and just walked around... I ran into the famous Lippizaner stallions. These horses have been bred for centuries, and each has a family tree that goes way back... they were absolutely beautiful!

As I got to the stables, they were leading the horses out (for what, I don't know) so I got to see them up close and personal! :)

After the horses, I thought it was time to try the famous Viennese sacretorte... I have no idea what that means, but it's basically chocolate cake... dry chocolate cake. My momma knows that this girl only likes MOIST chocolate cake, so I will not be recommending sacretorte to my friends. I managed to eat the whole thing (hey, it was still chocolate). :)

Hot chocolate, a good book, and chocolate cake - pure heaven for this girl! :)

Last stop for me was St. Stephen's Cathedral. This church had almost survived WWII when a spark set the original wood roof on fire. The citizens of the country all donated money to fix the roof, and so now it is mostly restored. It's gothic style, which I've seen a lot already, so these pictures probably are starting to look pretty similar... :)

Exterior of St. Stephens

Interior... I switched to B&W by accident, but I liked the effect! :)

So, all in all a great trip. The highlight was definitely the opera, but I did enjoy myself. Travelling alone is not quite as daunting as it once was, although the company of others is always nice. :)