Vienna Day 1

In Italy most students get about 5 days off for Easter, this being an extremely Catholic country they can get away with calling it Easter Vacation or Vacanza Pasquale.  So my friends Jenn and Beth who are studying in Orvieto, outside of Rome, and met in Vienna on Thursday night for 3 days of sightseeing.  The first two days in Vienna and Easter Sunday in Budapest, Hungary.  First of all, Vienna's Urban Planning is impecable.  There is a direct train from the airport to the center of the city that only takes 16 minutes.  The Metro system is so easy to use and almost every major sight is reachable via metro.  Granted most points of interest are very close to one another, there are a few that require the metro.  Once we arrived we took the train to the city, the metro to our hostel, got checked in, went out for drinks and went to bed.

The next morning we woke up early and had breakfast at a caffé.  Beth and I had Kaiser toast which ended up being grilled cheese.  It was very tastey but suprising that early in the morning.  And of course me with my espresso drink of some sort.  The coffee in Europe is amazing.  Everything is espresso, if you ask for a coffee you get an espresso shot.  I prefer it this way!  There were numerous Starbucks in Vienna though which I was pleased about.

Next we strolled through the Museum Quarter and the Hofburg palace area.  Our first goal for the day was to find tickets for an Opera or Concert.  Since it was Good Friday the only thing showing was a Mozart Concert, so we got tickets.

Museum Quarter

Hofburg Palace, the winter residence of the Royal Family.  (Note, my labeling may be a little off, a lot of the buildings look identical.)

My extremely limited knowledge of the German language quickly picked up that Platz added to the end of a name or word means plaza or piazza in Italian.  This is Stephansplatz above.  The plaza that surrounds the very center of the city which is of course a cathedral.  Below is St. Stephens Cathedral.  Its under renovation and many European buildings have done this I notice.  They cover the area with scafolding and then cover the scafolding with a transparant canvas printed to look identical to the building.  The left side of the church is covered with the canvas.

The photos below are of inside St. Stephans.

Inside almost every single crucifix was covered, in order of Good Friday I assume, except for this gigantic one.

Next, we climbed the church's spire.  I have climbed so many towers in the last couple months I dont think I can count them on two hands.  These are photos from the very top looking out at the city.

This is me in the Spire.

Next we went into one of the Hofburg palace museums to look at the crowned jewels.

This is a portrait of Empress Elizabeth, the Austrians refer to her as Sisi.  There have been a lot of movies made about her but all of them are very inacurate.  The audio guides made her sound like a very cold and angry woman.  She was a Bavarian princess or duchess and was forced to marry Franz Josef, the King of Austria.  She was unhappy with the forced marriage so she apparently made everyones life miserable.  She never went to court, ate alone, spent hours every day obsessing of her looks.  She would spend 2 hours daily having her hair done.  Franz Josef though, had a very good reputation of being a family man and working very hard as King.  He surrounded himself with photos of his family and children while she only had pictures of her family from Bavaria.  Her oldest son committed suicide and from then on she wore black every day until her death.  Her death was very tragic, she was assasinated in Switzerland when she was passing through on her way back to Vienna.   

This is a picture of Franz Josef's bedroom.  I was suprised at how simple the decore of this room was.  I suppose I only have Versaille and Napoleon's apartments at the Louvre to compare it to but it is significantly less impressive.  The large white thing in the corner is a heater.

After a lunch of pretzels from a street vendor we went to the Belvedere Museum.  The Belvedere holds some very important modern art.  I use the term Modern losely because in Europe Modern can mean anything made AD.  Here I mean modern as anything made in the last 2-300 years.  Gustav Klimt's The Kiss is here.  One of the most famous and expensive paintings ever sold.  The only one to top it's price is Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer I, which sold for $135 million dollars just a few years ago, also a Klimt painting.  This is considered the most paid for any piece of art in history including inflation and economic changes.  This painting is not at the Belvedere but there are numerous others by Klimt.  He is most definitely the most famous Viennese painter to date.  Other artists included in the Belvedere are Vincent Van Gogh, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, and one of my all time favorite artists August Rodin.  No photos were aloud inside but the outside of the museum is fantastic.  

View from the back of the museum of the rest of the city.

Front of the museum

After the Belvedere we went to the hostel, changed clothes, went out for dinner and then to the Mozart concert.  This is the music hall.  The concert was really great.  Almost all of the music is recognizable.  The musicians were all wearing 18th century costumes and the two opera singers that accompanied for a few songs had an interesting wardrobe as well.  At the bottom of this entry there is a video of one of the performances by the female opera singer.

The last thing to top off the day was finding Leonardo on the way home!  I know, my obsession is getting out of hand, but it has to be a sign from God when he appears out of no where in Vienna!!!!