Ein schoener Traum

Vienna's old town is encircled by a wide, busy street known as the Ringstrasse. The Ring is actually a marker of where the old medieval town wall stood before it was torn down in the 1860s to make way for the city's growth. A lot of the city's most important buildings line this street: the University, City Hall, Parliment, Natural History and Art History Museums, and Hofburg Palace. I could hop on the tram by Edith's apartment and have a little drive-by tour of all of these buildings before finally ending up at the Staatsoper. Yeah, I did that a few times.

My favorite building to watch at night was the City Hall (Rathaus). I say watch because during the winter, Vienna has a huge public ice skating rink set up in front of the Rathaus. There are food stands, the local pop radio station broadcasts live, and they light the place up like a disco. I'm kind of surprised that they got the OK to have the long-range, neon green searchlights, but they are definitely a very cool effect. You can see them all the way on the other side of the old town. I discovered this one night when I went out to get dinner. I was looking for the moon, but instead I noticed, "Oh look, green lights. People must be ice skating."

The city calls their City Hall ice rink the Wiener Eis Traum, which means Viennese ice dream. Good name.

Vienna Collage

A small fraction of the royal silver and
porcelain collection

Beethoven's grave

Brahms' grave

Goethe statue in traffic (Dad, is that you?!)

Staatsoper in snow...lots of snow...and also some wind.

Hostess with the mostess

Since I was in Vienna for a relatively long period of time, I stayed in an apartment. This was especialy nice beause I had access to a kitchen, laundry, and a lot more privacy than in hostels. Ms. Edith, the woman who owns the apartment where I stayed, is actually Hungarian, but has lived in Vienna for a long time. She has a beautiful Old World apartment near the Boerse (old Viennese stock exchange), which is right in the center of town.

Anyway, Edith was nice enough to take me to several great out-of-the-way spots in Vienna. My favorite was the Piaristenkeller, a traditional cellar restaurant that opened in 1698. It's located in the cloisters of the Piaristenkirch, a Baroque church where Haydn, Mozart, and many other famous musicians have performed. A waiter there gave us lessons in napkin origami. I had Fasancremsuppe (cream of pheasant soup). Yum!

Also adding to the charm of Edith's place was the fact that she makes good coffee, has a big shelf of books in English, has a good sense of humor, and played a recording of Tschaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet during breakfast. Danke, Edith!

At the Piaristenkellar

The Boerse, next to Edith's place

Mom and Dad always liked you best

Here's an interesting story.
Once upon a time in the 1700s, the empress Maria Theresa ruled the Hapsburg Empire. M.T. was quite an impressive, powerful lady, not least because she was the mother of 16 children. Of all her children, M.T. had a favorite daughter named Maria Christina, and she was the only one allowed to marry for love. Christina chose a guy from Saxony named Albert, and they lived happily ever after. Christina's sisters were strategically married into other important European families. Of course, arranged marriages were pretty common in royal families. In fact, one of Christina's sisters scored an especially adventageous marriage to the French king! Ah yes, unfortunately, it was the best of times and the worst of times in France. It was definitely the worst of times to be French royalty. Although this poor sister's story unhappily ended with the words, "Off with her head!" she did end up to be more famous than the happily-married Christina. Her name, of course, was Marie Antoinette.

Maria Christina's memorial in the Augustinerkirche

The Augustinerkirche (Augustinian Church) is where the Hapsburgs held Royal weddings, and also where they buried their hearts. Seriously. Their hearts are physically kept in the vault here. Their bodies are in a nearby imperial crypt, and their entrails are in the crypt of the Stephansdom. You know how the saying goes: don't put all your eggs in one basket, people.






above: looking toward the front altar of the Augustinerkirche
left: looking back toward the rear of the church; open door





















Since we're kind of on the subject of churches, this is the Karlskirche (Charles Church). I especially like visiting this church because, well, it's quite pretty, but also because they are in the middle of a big restoration project in the dome. There's a big service elevator right in the middle of the sanctuary! That doesn't sound very nice, I know, but it's actually really cool because you can take the elevator up to some scaffolding at the top of the dome and be right up next to the painted ceiling. Plus, the elevator is glass, so on the way up, you can pretend that you're flyyyyying!



top: Karlskirche, view from under a tree.
bottom: A smiley Jesus, a row of angel heads, and a jolly old God The Father
...clearly, this must be heaven!

Staatsoper

Behold: the Staatsoper

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Grand staircase






















One of my favorite places in Vienna is the Staatsoper. Vienna has one of the most famous opera houses in the world, and the put on a different performance almost every night. Going to the opera in Vienna is a big social event. If you want to see what's new in fur and diamonds this season in Europe, check out the lounge at the Staatsoper during an intermission. Luckily, the opera house sells a few hundred standing room tickets for each perfomance so that students and vacationing nurses can afford to go. You can get a good view on the main floor for 3 Euros. That's the price of a Starbucks coffee, people!

Balconies in the grand staircase

On stage after Falstaff

Whilst in Vienna, I went to four operas and two ballets at the Staatsoper. The famous Welsh baritone, Bryn Terfel was performing with the opera company in February and I got to see him twice! Therefore, I am now officially an opera snob.

I also discovered that I have an insatiable love for the ballet. After one especially charming performance, I had a wierd headache that I couldn't figure out. Then I realized: I had been grinning like an idiot for three straight hours and had pulled every muscle in my face.

Still Going

For all of you who are wondering, yes, I did fall off the face of the earth. I highly recommend it if you ever get the chance. Among other things, I discovered that the world is, in fact, flat. All of the Faithful Departed are sitting in the shade underneath it eating peanut butter and waffles and watching The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance.


Please note: if the above attempt at a joke causes you to question my mental health, rest assured that during my travels I have neither gained any sanity nor lost any sarcasm.



OK, so I'm not in Paris anymore. After several days in the City of Lights, I took a night train to Vienna. One of my non-negotiable goals for this trip has always been to spend several weeks in Vienna. Why? Because I love, love, Love Vienna, that's why.



There are actually about a million reasons why I like Vienna, but if I listed all of them here, this blog would become too long and tedious for even my parents to read (although, yes, I know you would give it a try, Mom and Dad).



As it is, I seemed to have already typed 12 lines of virtually worthless nonsense, so let's get on with it.



I'm a little stressed by how behind I am with the blog, and I'm not really sure where I should begin describing Vienna. So I'm just going to start by putting up some pictures of what comes to mind when I think of the city.
As far as old world powers go, Vienna used to be the heart of a very big deal. It was the capital city of the Austrian Empire, run by the Hapsburg dynasty. For over 600 years, the empire of the Hapsburg family was large and in charge. They were Holy Roman Emperors, they married into French, Spanish, and German royal families; they married Napoleon. They helped defend Western Europe against invasions by the Ottoman Turks. Finally, the Hapsburgs and their empire ran into a little snag also known as World War I.

There are posters all over Vienna advertising tours of the Royal Treasury. They say, "We don't have Emperors, just their jewels." I think this could be a slogan for the entire city of Vienna. The Royal Family is gone, but the buildings, artwork, waltzing, music, and coffeeshops are still there.





Parliment Building

Stephansdom (St. Stephan's Cathedral)





Staatsoper (Vienna State Opera House) 




Crown Jewels