<![CDATA[

Vienna, Austria

Today we were in Vienna. It was a cool and cloudy day, not bad for walking around the city.

Vienna is the largest city and capitol of Austria. It is known as the city of music because so many musicians have lived and worked there: Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, Schubert, Brahams, Mahler, Salieri, Liszt, Strauss and his son, and Schoenberg. The city has been continuously inhabited since 500 BC, originally by Celts and later by the Romans. In 1440, Vienna became the resident city of the Habsburg dynasty. It eventually grew to become the capitol of the Holy Roman Empire from1483–1806. Hungary briefly occupied the city between 1485–1490. The Hapsburgs ruled Austria and the Austro-Hungarian Empire for centuries, from the middle ages to WWI. This family was a huge political powerhouse with many political marriages with various royal families throughout Europe. In 1918, after World War I, Vienna became capital of the Republic of German-Austria, and then in 1919 of the First Republic of Austria. In 1913, Adolf Hitler, Leon Trotsky, Sigmund Freud, and Joseph Stalin all lived within a few miles of each other in central Vienna. Hitler invaded in 1938 and from then to the end of the Second World War Vienna lost its status as a capital to Berlin as Austria ceased to exist and became a part of Nazi Germany. It was not until 1955 that Austria regained full sovereignty with the Austrian State Treaty.

We started out on a bus/walking tour of the old town. After that, Paul and I went out on our own. As usual, we were mostly interested in really old stuff. Unfortunately, many of the older buildings were destroyed in WWII bombing raids. We went to see St Stephen’s Cathedral which is a gothic style cathedral which was started in the 1300s, although 2 previous churches had been on that site since 1147. The towers of the cathedral are 446 feet tall and quite impressive. The main doors of the cathedral are called Giant’s Door after large bones were excavated there in 1443. They were believed to be the bones of giants but actually turned out to be mastodon bones. We actually went to the cathedral twice. The first visit was during mass so we returned later so we could actually tour the cathedral.

We also saw 2 other churches, St Peter’s Church and Minoritenkirche (minorities church). St Peter’s Church is a baroque building constructed from 1702 to 1708, although a church has been on this site since the 4th century. The interior has frescoes and wood carvings from the early 1700s, including a painted dome. The Minoritenkirche was initially constructed from 1276 to 1350. It is related to the monastic order of the “Minor” or Franciscan monks. They were having mass when we visited and there was no real way to get in without disturbing the service so we didn’t actually enter the building.

We went by the stables for the Lipizzaner horses twice. The Lipizzaner or Lipizzan breed was developed with the support of the Habsburg nobility. The ancestors of the Lipizzan can be traced to approximately A.D. 800. Until the 18th century, Lipizzans had other coat colors, including dun, bay, chestnut, black, piebald and skewbald. However, gray is a dominant gene. Gray was the color preferred by the royal family, and so the color was emphasized in breeding practices. While we were peeking at the horses, a large tabby cat came over so that I could pet it. It might have been chubbier than Dave…definitely didn’t miss any meals.

We did manage to go to a museum. We went to the Albertina Museum and saw paintings by Monet, Picasso, Munch, and others. They also had a photography exhibit. Not a huge museum, but definitely worth a visit. My only frustration is that they had a sign as you go in indicating that photography was not allowed. We had to check our bags so I left my cameras. While we were in the museum one of the staff said non-flash photos were fine. Fortunately I had brought in my iphone, but it definitely does not take the same quality of pictures as my good cameras.

Before going back to the boat we went to a cafe for Sacher Torte which is a local style of chocolate cake with an apricot jam filling. We had some time to relax on the boat before going out into Vienna again for a Mozart and Strauss concert. The concert was put on by the Vienna Residence Orchestra and it was excellent.

]]>