Wien

So last weekend I took a trip to Vienna (Wien) with Halsey and Fiona. We took an overnight bus there and back, and stayed in an absolutely amazing Air BnB!

We started with a big breakfast!

And then we were off the explore the Schönbrunn Palace, the casual summer home of the Habsburg monarchs…

Complete with the replica of Roman Ruins, built in 1778…

An Obelisk fountain from 1777…

And MUCH more, which we would discover when we went back on Sunday!

After we checked in to our home for the weekend, we picnicked in the park by the Prater.

And saw the famous Wiener Riesenrad, built in 1897

We opted for a more open air experience, and swung around the park at a rather impressive height, scoping out places we wanted to go the next day.

One of which was the Belvedere, the Baroque palaces for the Habsburgs, started around 1712.

Here is the Upper Belvedere, which houses an art museum that boasts a huge collection of Klimt, including The Kiss and Judith, which I couldn’t take photos of, and Napoleon Cross the Alps. I had no idea that the Napoleon portrait was there, and it took me completely by surprise. It is crazy to think that now I have seen that painting AND the Alps themselves.

The lower Belvedere boasted some pretty amazing rooms.

The Lower palace also had an amazing collection of Lawrence Alma-Tadema, who did many works on classical-subjects, and is now alongside Mucha as one of my new favorite artists.

We stopped for a traditional Austrian lunch, and the crew was already sick of me taking pictures of them…

We stumbled upon an old WWII monument that I couldn’t read.

And then went to Karlskirche. Which was nuts.

This Baroque church was consecrated in 1737, and was built after a large plague epidemic, dedicated to the saint of plague sufferers

The coolest part about this church was that we could go all the way to the top. This is the very top ceiling fresco.

Here is a fresco of God sparing the plague sufferers…

An Angel destroying heresy (note the only legible word is Luteru, a reference to Luther, the Lutheran upbringing in me cringed a bit)

We walked past the famous Vienna Opera, complete with cute stoplight.

And stumbled upon the Hofburg, with a Mozart impersonator!

Then it was on to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, where we happened upon a very important mass…

A Bishop was there! I think, I’m not familiar with the different ceremonial garb…

We then followed the crowd and accidentally sat through an hour of Catholic mass in German (I had hoped some of it would be in Latin because then I’d actually understand it) and I managed to simultaneously have no idea what was going on AND when I tried to fit in more I completely crossed myself backwards. The singing was absolutely gorgeous though, Ave Maria was written to be sung in cathedrals.