Vienna holds an interesting distinction as the only city on this trip that we left and returned to for more sightseeing. For simplicity's sake, I'll go through all of the Vienna pictures in one post, but let you know when we took a side trip out of the city (and country).
We arrived in Vienna's Hauptbahnhof Station and it was literally a highlight of the trip for me. Like many North Americans, I really struggled with the whole 'paying to use a public restroom' thing, especially when so many of them were dirty or out of toilet paper. Hauptbahnhof was the exact opposite. I can't stop giggling thinking about how great it was, and how I probably would have happily paid twice the amount to use this bathroom. Want to see what happens after you flush the toilet? (Not my video, but I can vouch that nothing worrisome can be seen!)
Best toilet ever!
We used Austria's excellent transit system to get directly out to Schönbrunn Palace, which was built in the 1750s and is crazy beautiful. It sits in a floodplain below a large hill, but the entire grounds has endless running paths, gardens, statues, fountains, Roman Ruins and a Gloriette (building in a garden on elevated ground). We could have spent all day wandering around these grounds and not seen everything there was there.
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| I have no idea why, but this obelisk is held up by four golden turtles |
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| Gloriette | |
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| While trying to get a selfie up on the hill at the Gloriette... |
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| ...the person who was stretching in the first picture offered to take some for us. Thanks, random Austrian jogger! |
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| She also got us to turn around to take a picture in front of the Gloriette (we're standing in almost the same place as the picture above). |
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| Tons of gardeners working here, you can see why! |
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| I sent this picture to my mom, because the statue seems to be holding a recorder... she's had a real hate-on for recorders since our elementary school recitals! |
We then headed over to the Spanish Riding School to see the morning exercises. This is where the world-famous white Lipizzaner are trained to perform dressage. For my equine vets and riding friends, the school needs no introduction. For the rest, the Lipizzaners are very specially bred grey horses - which means they are born dark (black or bay, which is a dark brown) and their hair turns white as they mature and age. There aren't many of them in the world, and protecting them during both World Wars was a major undertaking.
Here is a quick video showing the horses, and the building we were in for exercises, as opportunities for photos were really limited. If you're interested, the next video on autoplay is an hour-long documentary on the school and horses and it's really great.
Lipizzaner Stallions and the Spanish Riding School
One thing I didn't know until we were there, is that occasionally a Lipizzaner won't grey with age but stays dark brown - the Spanish Riding School always keeps at least one of these dark stallions around as a kind of 'good luck' charm.
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| The stallion on the right is midway through the greying process (his tail has turned white, so he won't be one of the individuals that stays dark). |
After the show, we walked through the neighbourhood near the Riding School and got lunch at a government canteen (cafeteria) that is run by a locally famous chef who has his own cookbook. Lucky workers in that building! If you're ever in Vienna, anyone can go to these cafeterias, the food is excellent and it's less expensive than going to a regular restaurant.
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| Our seat for lunch. Pretty nice cafeteria! |
One of the things that was different about Vienna is that, in 2015, they made the pedestrian crossing lights inclusive for all sexual orientations. It was originally a promotional event, but was made permanent after positive feedback. We saw several iterations and bought a postcard with all of them. What a neat idea! I love the heart shapes as well - no matter who you are, love is love.
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| Credit: http://www.travelgumbo.com/blog/austria-extends-marriage-equality-to-traffic-lights |
This is the beautiful Votive Church, which was sadly under renovation so we didn't get to see much. It was built in the 1850's to 'show gratitude to God' for sparing the life of the Emperor from an attempted assassination. The man who started the plan was the Emperor's brother, Archduke Ferdinand Maximillian. And if you know your European history, this archduke was the uncle of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whose assassination led to World War I.
We also saw a memorial to the victims of the Bubonic Plague in Vienna, which killed over 75,000 people in the city alone, and was part of the larger outbreaks happening throughout Europe. This was a great visual lesson in the importance of choosing the right vantage point for photographs!
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| Notwithstanding the pigeon netting, a pretty good picture... |
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| ...but from the other side.... |
We next visited some interesting and very stylistically different churches. The first was one of the most famous churches in Austria, St. Stephen's Cathedral. The tiled roof is very beautiful - the inside didn't stand out for me in any major way from the other Gothic-style churches we've been to. Apparently the tall south tower took 65 years to build, and they were going to build the north tower as tall but by the time they started, this look for churches had gone out of vogue!
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| One thing I did like in this church were the subtle and simple stained glass windows. It was a nice change from the sensory overload throughout the rest of the building |
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Photo credit: Bwag https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34474812
I didn't get my own picture of this side of the church, but you can kind of tell that this wasn't how the tower was originally designed, eh? |
The other church we saw was the Jesuit Church, built in the 1620's, with a style that I found online described as 'baroque on acid.' I remember it in my head as the Dr. Seuss Church. From the outside it seems pretty normal (and tucked away into a dead-end, with buildings attached on each side), but the inside is pretty crazy!
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| Justin pondering life, and also these zany columns |
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| Check out the awesome trompe l'oeil dome painted on the ceiling! |
We definitely needed some food at this point in the day, and decided to stop off at Figlmueller, which has been serving schnitzel for over a century. The waiter helpfully recommended that we only get one, with some sides, and it's a good thing we took his advice! The thing was huge (but delicious)!
To end the day, we headed over to the Prater amusement park. This park is built on former royal hunting ground which was donated to the public in 1766. It is free to enter, and much like the temporary midways/parking lot fairs you pay for the individual rides. Apparently many of the rides and cafes in the park are individually owned small businesses! The park was very ahead of its time - in the 1890's there was an exhibit called 'Venice in Vienna' which dug artificial moats to simulate being in Venice!
The most famous ride is the ferris wheel Risenrad, which was built in 1897 and is a major part of the city's skyline. It was the world's tallest ferris wheel from 1920 to 1985 at 212 feet tall. It was partly destroyed during WWII but has since been rebuilt. It has 15 gondolas - some carry tourists around once for a 15-20 minute ride, while other gondolas are set up for special occasions (birthdays, engagements, anniversaries etc) and have fine dining and catering set up at the bottom of the wheel. There's also a neat exhibit at the bottom which shows dioramas of the ferris wheel (and park itself) through several key parts of its history, presented inside wooden gondolas! This was a really neat side trip and I would definitely recommend making the trip there if you're in Vienna.
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| Is it just me, or are old control panels really fascinating? |
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| Yes Justin, I suppose engineers did build this one |
So that was pretty cool! We then took a little side trip to another country - we headed from Prater straight to the bus station and caught a coach to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia - only 1 hour away! We'll give Bratislava it's own post, but seems silly not to tie up the last few loose ends of our time in Vienna! We came back the next afternoon, and for once had some time to do exciting things like laundry (we were due at this point!) and having dinner. We did a bit more walking around, and I have these unrelated photos to share. We left the next morning, and that was it for Vienna! This was the only city on this train trip (and one of only a handful all year!) that we couldn't find a walking tour in - I think that's one of the reasons that I left feeling like I didn't know Vienna as well as many of the other ones we'd visited. Hopefully one day we can go back and rectify this!
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| This building was coated in reflective material to encourage pedestrians to reflect on themselves and the world around them |
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| Look at that sky! Our incredible luck with weather continues |
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| Streetcars - great for public transportation, crummy if you want to get a picture of nice buildings without a bunch of wires in the way! |
