day eight

january 03 1997 - day eight - vienna, austria

today was just another one of those days. we tried desparately to see as much of vienna as possible in one day, and of course, we failed miserably. we got up very early to eat at the hostel, and we headed off to schonbrunn palace, the home of franz josef and the hapsburgs. it's a big, yellow building. it is a very pretty place, but i just know that it must be prettier in the summer or fall. at first sight, it reminded me of blenheim palace in england, only it's yellow and covered in snow. mozart played there for the empress when he was 6 and jfk and kruscev met there in the 60's. lot's of history. all around, it was pretty cool; especially the hand-held tour guides. i dug 'em.

schonbrunn palace - vienna

from shonbrunn, we headed into the city center to get tickets to the staatsoper. when we got there, we found that 'the nutcracker' was playing that night, but it was standing room only. (speaking of which, geoff stayed back at the hostel today. he seems to have really messed his ankle up.)
from there, we got lunch. it was okay, not great. they gave us bread, we ate it, and they charged us for it. another learning experience in a different culture...bread is not always complimentary. it was uncool.

geoff's view of vienna

we also saw burial pits that served as the vienna cemetary during the black plague. one chamber had over 1000 victims in it. pretty sobering. the church itself was gorgeous. very cluttered, but very spacious at the same time, if that makes any sense. there were detailed statues and relief sculptures all over the place. the columns each had individual altars at the base. everything was very detailed. it impressed me very much. even for a cathedral (in my opinion they're pretty much all the same.)

january 03 1997 - day eight - vienna, austria today was just another one of those days. we tried desparately to see as much of vienna as possible in one day, and of course, we failed miserably. we got up very early to eat at the hostel, and we headed off to schonbrunn palace, the home of franz josef and the hapsburgs. it's a big, yellow building. it is a very pretty place, but i just know that it must be prettier in the summer or fall. at first sight, it reminded me of blenheim palace in england, only it's yellow and covered in snow. mozart played there for the empress when he was 6 and jfk and kruscev met there in the 60's. lot's of history. all around, it was pretty cool; especially the hand-held tour guides. i dug 'em.

	schonbrunn palace - vienna
			from shonbrunn, we headed into the city center to get tickets to the staatsoper. when we got there, we found that 'the nutcracker' was playing that night, but it was standing room only. (speaking of which, geoff stayed back at the hostel today. he seems to have really messed his ankle up.) from there, we got lunch. it was okay, not great. they gave us bread, we ate it, and they charged us for it. another learning experience in a different culture...bread is not always complimentary. it was uncool.

geoff's view of vienna
after lunch, we walked up the street to stephansdom cathedral. wow. stephansdom was bombed out in wwII. they replaced the roof with a tile mosaic. it's incredible. however, before we stepped inside, we were whisked away by some guy to mozart's house. it was a free, very brief tour. not all that interesting, but we found out about a concert that night in a small concert hall next door to the house. we decided to do that instead of the opera, but not in time to get back to stephansdom. we had less than an hour to see it. the cathedral and plaza have catacombs underneath that we really wanted to go through, so we pulled the rapid tour. in the catacombs we saw important figures in austrian history, well, their remains anyway. including the entrails of the entire hapsburg family. lovely, huh?
we also saw burial pits that served as the vienna cemetary during the black plague. one chamber had over 1000 victims in it. pretty sobering. the church itself was gorgeous. very cluttered, but very spacious at the same time, if that makes any sense. there were detailed statues and relief sculptures all over the place. the columns each had individual altars at the base. everything was very detailed. it impressed me very much. even for a cathedral (in my opinion they're pretty much all the same.)

					catacombs - lots of bones



				stephansdom cathedral - vienna
		brian and i at schonbrunn - you can see the cold

the concert was good. the two musicians were students and obviously had some room to grow, but they did a good job on the whole, and it was a nice, relaxing evening. a little too relaxing, maybe. i had trouble staying awake. not sure it was worth the money we paid, but it was good. we then went back to get geoff. and after more "deliberating," we went back into the city for dinner. we ate good. a great italian place that was pretty cheap and, dang! was it good. we sat around and filled ourselves for some time. by then, it was late and we had to race back to beat the hostel's midnight curfew. we made it with 4 minutes to spare. meanwhile, laura and i have started a game of racing up and down (mostly up) escalators. it's amazing what lack of sleep can cause you to do. i win mostly, by the way. we part with her tomorrow in salzburg. it's been great to see her again. wish she could stay on longer. it's late and i'm tired.



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