Vienna!
As the title may have indicated, I was recently in Vienna. Last Friday Shawn and I bussed there, and stayed at the Wombat's City Hostel (the Lounge) for three nights. A lot of ECES students were there also, they went on the school trip but paid more than we did and stayed one less night.
Upon arrival we checked into the hostel and trekked up to our room to find a sleeping South Korean man (this was about 3:30 PM), who was clearly embarrassed by this that he immediately jumped out of bed, washed up and dressed. Turns out this was going to be his last night in Vienna after having attended an International Atomic Energy Agency conference!!! I wish we could've talked more to him, but we didn't really see him much after that. He was heading out to an opera, and we went exploring.
Vienna is goregous! It's very noticeable that an empire had its capital here. The boulevards are very wide, the squares are enormous, and the buildings are extraordinarily beautiful. Last time I was in Vienna the majority of the famous buildings (the Rathaus, the Kunsthistoriche Museum and its twin, the Parliament, etc.) were covered in soot and pollution making them very dark and non-appealing. This time however, they must've just cleaned them all and they were awesome (in the full meaning of the word). I was truly left in awe. And unlike Prague, these buildings are lit up from the inside out at night, which makes them that much more cool.
Rathaus (City Hall)
The next day (Saturday) was the first really nice day in Europe. It was sunny and warm enough for me not to need to wear any sort of jacket. Shawn and I walked from our hostel to Schonbrunn (not a short walk, at all) which was even more amazing than the buildings downtown. The estate was enormous!! And to think that one family owned it, and lived here, Kaiser Franz Josheph had it made. The gardens are like a mini-park, probably as big as Central Park in Burnaby. They're littered with statues and fountains, and in the summer the large amount of vegetation would surely make them even more stunning. While there Shawn and I went to the Schonbrunn Zoo (yes, there's a zoo on the palace grounds). It was really cool, they had a ton of animals including polar bears, pandas, tigers, elephants, giraffes, sea lions, penguins and a lot of other animals you'd expect to see at a zoo. We spent quite a bit of time there, it was fun.
The interior of the palace was also impressive, but I think I hyped it up too much after having been so impressed by the exterior. The majority of the rooms were nice, but nothing too special. Except for the main entrance halls, the main staircase and the ballroom. Those were gorgeous, the ceilings and walls were covered in impressive paintings, cool chandeliers, stucco, the works. Lots of expensive shiny things. The coolest part of the whole thing was the fact that I stood in the same room where Mozart played for Maria Theresa at age six!
Schonbrunn Palace, seen from the gardens
On Sunday I woke up early-ish and was looking forward to buying a big carton of juice and some food at the grocery store next to the hostel, but found it closed. No problem, I thought, I'll go to the next one over. It turns out that not only was THAT one also closed, but nearly everything in the city was. Stores, cafes, restaurants... all closed! It took me a while to find a place to eat, turns out it was McDonald's. It was actually very different than a Canadian McD's. First of all it was called McDonald's McCafe, which means exactly what you think: they had the regular Austrian McD's menu (Big Mac, some other burgers, etc.) but also a cafe. The cafe sold all kinds of teas, coffee, hot chocolate and pastries. And the interior design was very modern, minimal and slick. (I had a huge fruit tea and a croissant by the way). After being somewhat fed I went to visit Haydn's house. He used to live a little of Mariahilferstrasse, close to Westbanhof, but in his day this was a neighbourhood of orchards and gardens. In his time, if a Viennese friend was to visit him he'd have to make it a day trip! Nowadays you can get downtown from there in ten minutes via the metro.
Anyhow, his house was now a museum about the last 12 years of his life (the years he spent in the house) and it was quite interesting. I saw one of his klaviers, and a lot of copies of his compositions and sketches. And a lot of letter, corresponding even with other famous composers like Beethoven (who actually visited Haydn at this house a few times).
Then I checked out the Kunsthistoriches museum. The museum was amazing! I thought I'd get bored after a while, given that it boasted thirty rooms, the smaller with four or five paintings, the larger with about twenty. That's a lot of Renaissance art, but I was actually very captivated by it, some paintings really sucked me in and made me think.
The exhibition was split up into two sections, the Italian Renaissance, and the Dutch. My favourite painiting was a bit of a Renaissance experiment in capturing light; it's called Self portrait in a convex mirror, by Parmigiano. I thought the fact that someone was playing around with something like that back then is really awesome. My favourite artist though, was Rubens (Dutch). His paintings are jaw-dropping. Not only are some so enormous that they wouldn't fit lying down in my house if I took out the walls, but they showed that he was truly a master.
The last museum I visited was the Figaro House, aka the apartment Mozart lived in when he composed the Marriage of Figaro. I learned quite a bit about him that I didn't know before! For example, he made four times the amount Haydn made at one point, except he loved to gamble and he was constantly in debt. Also, the Viennese didn't love him as much as his true fans in Prague! No wonder he premiered Don Giovanni here (which I'm going to be seeing in two weeks).
Viennese Tram
The last day was a bit of an adventure that involved travelling across the city numerous times, a forgotten tripod and a theme park, but luckily all was well at the end of it all. The theme park, Prater, is the oldest in Europe and it's really cool. There's no admission fee, instead you pay per each privately-owned ride. Most were closed, but we went on two roller-coasters and a mash-up of the Hellevator and the Chair Swing from Playland.
All in all Vienna was amazing, and I can't wait to see it again, preferrably when everything is in bloom and green. I could keep going, but then I'd have nothing to tell you all when I see you! So I'll stop here. If you want to see the pictures I took there, check them out here.
Vis-a-vis the Kunsthistoriches Museum
