2006-10-13 - 3:14 p.m.
I keep meeting people who look like relatives of mine on the trains over here. First it was the elderly Czech that reminded me of Grandpa Sivak, and then the old Slovak who reminded me of Grandma Ferrey, and then today we met an American doctor (a hemopathologist, apparently) who strongly reminded me of my aunt, Lisa.
Vienna was awesome. We had a long time there (a week)and little to do, so we spent a lot of time investigating the different benches of Vienna. It was an agreeable way to spend a week. Our hostel was cheap, so we could even afford to go for coffee a couple times. Missed the famous Viennese coffeehouses though- Starbucks was closer.
We did manage to see several museums though. Vienna was the capital of the Holy Roman Empire all through the middle ages, and then the capital of the Austrian Empire (same thing less Germany). The upshot of this is that there is more history and giant buildings in Vienna than you can shake a stick at. I mean, I've mentioned the Ministry of Enormous Buildings, and the Ministry of Giant Buildings, but I am now convinced that both these august institutions of European architecture learned their stuff in Vienna. Every building there is huge. The Hofburg, the Royal Palace/Parliament is this huge complex of interrelated buildings that must cover more ground than Caroline!
I had read a book about Franz Joseph, who was the second last Austrian Emperor. He died in 1916, and the monarchy was disestablished in 1918 at the end of the first world war, which the Austrians picked the wrong team for. Anyway, it was a great book, and I was looking forward to seeing some of the sites associated with Franz Joseph.
We went to the Royal Apartments in the Hofburg. When you go to see this, you actually get in to see three museums. First there was the Silver Museum. This was a museum of the Hapsburg's plates and cutlery. It was all the old dining services and serving dishes, etc. It was pretty dull, unless you happen to be my mom, who I think would have gotten a kick out of it. There was an exhaustive audio guide, which I listened to most of. I can tell you an awful lot about the history of Hapsburg dining, but I won't.
Next was the Sissi Museum. Sissi was the pet name of Elizabeth, who was Franz Joseph's wife. She was, to put it kindly, nuts. Actually, she had a very complex personality, and probably suffered from depression associated with public life from the age of 15, as well as issues with her self image. The thing with Sissi, is that she was assassinated in 1897, which made her this huge cult figure among certain people. The museum was dedicated to telling the truth about her (or, as I thought of it, the Hapsburg side of the story. It is their museum after all!) Anyway, it was excellent. She had a very interesting life, from being married to an emperor at age 15 to becoming estranged from her husband in her 40's, to letting her mother in law raise her kids, to finally meeting a sticky end in Switzerland at the hands of an Italian anarchist. They had some very good displays, including the murder weapon, and the dress she was wearing at the time of death. They also had lots of examples of her poetry, which was both fairly depressing and not very good.
The Kaiser Apartments were great. I've always like Franz Joseph, who really got a raw deal as Kaiser. He started in 1848 at age 18, after an uprising deposed his uncle. He then got to over see the Hungarian Independence movement (they became an autonomous kingdom under Franz Joseph, only loosely associated with the rest of Austria) to having his son commit murder/suicide with a woman who was not his wife, to the first two years of the first world war. Add to this the fact that his wife was depressed and nearly always traveling, his mother was fairly controlling, and part of the Austrian Empire was the Balkans (and we all know how happy the Balkans generally are). Anyway, he was from all accounts a great guy, and very hard working. The museum gave a good example of this in his apartments. We also got to see Sissi's toilet, which was a very modern thing to have in the palace at the time. It looked just like a normal can. I guess somethings can only evolve so far.
We also went to see the Sigmund Freud museum. I was excited about this. Having taken Psych in school, I felt like I should see it, especially since it was in the same apartments that he used for fifty years as a practice. It was, however, fairly disappointing. Only two rooms were restored as Freud had them. The rest was dedicated to some bizarre art show about couches. Yeah, it was weird. There was a part about sanatoriums too, which I REALLY didn't get. The only other good part? Home movies of Freud in the last year of his life in England. His daughter Anna did the narration. Those were interesting.
We saw two churches. The first was the Augustiner Kirche in the Hofburg. This was a beautiful Gothic building. There was a tomb with some beautiful carvings on it as well.
The other church was Karls Kirche, which we had to pay to get into, but got our moneys worth. It is in the Baroque style, which I think means decorations out the wazoo. Every inch was decorated from carvings to paintings, and it was all gorgeous, and not as overwhelming as you would think. It was being restored, which made it hard to see part of it, but we went up to the dome to get a look over Vienna. The only reason you could do this is because of the restoration I think. We got really close to the magnificent ceiling fresco, so we could really see the detail. It was awesome. The view out over Vienna wasn't bad either! There was a museum with some reliquaries there as well, but it was pretty small. I did see part of St. Karl's intestine's though.
The other interesting thing that we saw was the Hapsburg crypt. I love crypts. All these people I would never have been allowed near in life, and now I can stand as long as I like to look at their coffins. There were lots of coffins, dating back to the sixteenth century. Some of the older ones had crazy moulded skulls on them, not just one or two, but five or six on each coffin. It was a bit over the top. One had, instead of feet, carved eagles holding it up, but the eagles were depicted to be straining to lift the thing. It was interesting. As time went on the skulls got less, down to one or two one each coffin, and then none. We saw the tombs of Franz Joseph, and Elizabeth, and their son, as well as Franz Joseph's brother who was emperor of Mexico for a while, until the Mexicans rose up and killed him.
That was all the cultural stuff we did. We though about going to see the symphony, but kept forgetting. We spent a lot of time going from bench to bench, reading, enjoying the city, or talking.
Our hostel was great too. It had a kitchen, so we got to cook! One night Jesse made really good chicken penne, and it was so nice to eat a regular meal that someone had cooked. The other nights we ate potato soup, which was also very good.
On Monday (happy Thanksgiving by the way) we met a couple of very nice Canadians from the Maritimes. We ended up going out for supper with them the next night to celebrate Thanksgiving. I had goulash, and it was excellent.
That was Vienna. I think nearly everyday we saw something, but we didn't worry about fitting more than one thing into a day. Just a great week of enjoying Europe.
We left for Salzburg this morning. On the train we met a couple who were both doctors from California. She (the one who reminded me of Lisa) was in Vienna for a conference that had just finished, and they were taking a couple days in Salzburg and Prague before going back to the States. They were both really nice, and enjoyable to talk to.
Getting into Salzburg, I called and found a hostel. Then I got us a little lost finding it. Then Jesse, who had looked at updated prices on the internet last night, called again, and we found out that it was 21.50 a night there. Turns out there was a closer, easier to find hostel for much cheaper. So, we have a room in a six bed dorm with inadequate lockers. Four days here and on to Switzerland!
