August 2, 2013
August 2, 2013
Today we are going to explore the city center of Vienna. We are following Rick Steve's walking tour. It starts by hopping on and off the main shopping street. Aimee keeps getting side-tracked looking in stores so we have to backtrack more than once. Our first major stop is St Stephan Cathedral. It has a beautiful colored tile roof but it's interior is unexciting. We continue up the pedestrian Graben Street past the Plague Monument to St Peters Church, which has a magnificent interior. From there we continue on to the Hapsburg Palace, which was the winter quarters of the Monarchy. We are palaced-out so we don't bother with the tour. Instead we make our way back to where we started for desert at Cafe Sacher. It is famous for its torte desert. It is a nice chocolate cake, but we have had similar.
Europe (west of Russia) is suffering a serious heat wave and air-conditioning is pretty rare. We pop in and out of stores and museums looking for a hint of cool air. No place has American style cooling. The heat is sapping our energy. We don't feel like doing any of the many fine museums in Vienna. Instead we stroll past many wonderful monuments and beautiful old buildings. Vienna is full of them and we stumble upon several unexpected gems. My favorites are Parliament, Karlskirche (a church with a pair of Trajan's columns astride it) and finally a Soviet War Memorial dedicated to their "liberation" from the Nazis. Wieners (people of Vienna) felt violated instead but they surprisingly haven't torn it down. We liked it mostly for the big spray of water that gave us a short respite from the heat. We ended at a Vienna food court called Naschmarkt where we ate a late lunch. Some delicious Thai food and a cold beer seemed to hit the right spot.
Feeling a little renewed, we took a wide detour back to the hotel to visit Belvedere, the former home of Prince Eugene of Savoy. Eugene is a military hero of Austria famous for driving the Turks out of Budapest and Belgrade. We are surprised by the size of his house. It is a royal-size palace with equally grand garden.
I must say, I never knew much of the history of Eastern Europe. So before this trip, I read a couple books and watched a few movies. Spain drove the Muslims out of western Europe in 1492. Little did I know the Austrians were fighting Ottoman Muslims far longer. Vienna barely survived several sieges, the last in 1683, long after the Italians were having their Renaissance. The Ring Road that circles the city center is where the city walls once stood. When the Ottomans were finally forced to retreat in the late 1600's Austria scooped up the Hungarian lands greatly enlarging their empire.
Europe (west of Russia) is suffering a serious heat wave and air-conditioning is pretty rare. We pop in and out of stores and museums looking for a hint of cool air. No place has American style cooling. The heat is sapping our energy. We don't feel like doing any of the many fine museums in Vienna. Instead we stroll past many wonderful monuments and beautiful old buildings. Vienna is full of them and we stumble upon several unexpected gems. My favorites are Parliament, Karlskirche (a church with a pair of Trajan's columns astride it) and finally a Soviet War Memorial dedicated to their "liberation" from the Nazis. Wieners (people of Vienna) felt violated instead but they surprisingly haven't torn it down. We liked it mostly for the big spray of water that gave us a short respite from the heat. We ended at a Vienna food court called Naschmarkt where we ate a late lunch. Some delicious Thai food and a cold beer seemed to hit the right spot.
Feeling a little renewed, we took a wide detour back to the hotel to visit Belvedere, the former home of Prince Eugene of Savoy. Eugene is a military hero of Austria famous for driving the Turks out of Budapest and Belgrade. We are surprised by the size of his house. It is a royal-size palace with equally grand garden.I must say, I never knew much of the history of Eastern Europe. So before this trip, I read a couple books and watched a few movies. Spain drove the Muslims out of western Europe in 1492. Little did I know the Austrians were fighting Ottoman Muslims far longer. Vienna barely survived several sieges, the last in 1683, long after the Italians were having their Renaissance. The Ring Road that circles the city center is where the city walls once stood. When the Ottomans were finally forced to retreat in the late 1600's Austria scooped up the Hungarian lands greatly enlarging their empire.
posted by Mike and Aimee at 11:24 PM
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