What wasn’t so easy was waking up at 3 AM on Friday morning to catch our 6 AM flight to Vienna. We kept telling ourselves we’d have the whole day in the city if we got there early, but it was so difficult to get out of bed and finish packing in the middle of the night. I slept the entire flight, but David was wired after his coffee and read the paper. We landed at 9 AM, ready to tour the town!
Vienna was beautiful, despite the cloudy, cold weather. Every building is stunning and the city is filled with so much history. We didn’t know a lot about the Austrian Empire before our trip, which meant we learned a ton! These are our top five highlights:
1) During the Roman Empire, Vienna was one of the centers of Germania known as Vindobona. For those movie buffs out there who love "Gladiator" as much as David and me, you’ll remember that the beginning of the movie features a battle in Vindobona against the Barbarians (aka Germans). So Vienna is where that battle took place, and shortly after, where Emperor Marcus Aurelius died (in the movie and in real life). While touring the city on Friday afternoon, we stumbled across the Roman ruins in Michaelerplatz.
It’s amazing that there are cities beneath cities around the world like this. How do major buildings get buried? The windows of the ruins are now filled with dirt beneath the street. It’s hard to imagine that a couple thousand years ago those windows faced open sky. Looking around us in Vienna, I couldn’t comprehend how the grand opera houses or palaces might one day be excavated hundreds of feet below where we stood. I don’t get it…
2) The delicious Sacher torte was invented at the Hotel Sacher in Vienna across from the State Opera House. After we landed on Friday morning and dropped our bags at the hotel, we headed to Café Frauenhuber for a traditional Austrian breakfast of rolls with different spreads and hot chocolate! This café is famous for being the oldest café in town and can also boast that both Mozart and Beethoven performed here. After our meal, we walked around the city for a few hours, and decided to skip lunch and opt for some sweets instead! Hotel Sacher, I have to admit, is a tourist trap (and infamous as being known as a discreet hotel for adulterers), but it’s worth it to taste the torte!
3) There is actually a patron saint of the plague, Saint Charles Borromeo. During the plague epidemic in 1713, Emperor Karl VI vowed to build a church dedicated to St. Borromeo once the city was healed. Karlskirche is the result of this promise. It is the tallest Baroque church in Vienna at 236 feet. We visited the church on Saturday morning after deciding to skip Vienna’s flea market and sleep in. Visitors have the option to view the artwork of the dome close-up by taking a terrifying elevator ride to the top, and then finish walking the last few feet up an even scarier scaffold to see the painted dove directly underneath the dome. Well of course we had to do this! I didn’t think it would be that frightening, but the scaffold was so rickety! My legs must have been tensed the entire way up to the dome because they were sore days later! I learned to appreciate the work of the artists hundreds of years ago so much more standing directly beneath the dome and watching other church-goers over 200 feet below me. They really couldn’t be afraid of heights at all to have such a steady hand to paint those beautiful images.
Karlskirche
4) Cocaine injections were commonly used as painkillers and antidepressants for women going through menopause or PMS a hundred years ago. On Sunday afternoon, David and I toured the old royal apartments.
Michaelertor, home to the royal apartments and Spanish Riding School
The first floor exhibit featured all of the royal china and silver. The first few rooms were interesting, but there was so much china that after about 20 minutes, David and I gave up listening to the audio guide and practically jogged through the remaining exhibit. Seriously, how much china does the royal family need? There seemed to be a different set for each day of the year. The second floor of the apartments was called the Sisi Museum. We had no idea what that meant, but when we walked inside, our audio guide explained that this tour would explore Empress Elisabeth’s fascinating life and all of the rumors surrounding her. Sisi was Elisabeth’s nickname, hence the name of the museum. She was promised to Emperor Josef when she was 16, married and had her first child by the age of 18. Obsessed with her appearance, her ankle-length hair took 3 hours to do every day. She was 5’8 and only weighed about 95 pounds because she regularly fasted or drank meat juice. She wasn’t content with her life in the Austrian court and travelled abroad often. In one of her medicinal travel kits, there was a syringe her doctors used to inject her with cocaine. Empress Elisabeth became more and more depressed the older she got. Her son, the Crown Prince Rudolph committed suicide at his hunting lodge after he murdered his 17 year-old mistress. After that, she fell into a deeper depression and was eventually assassinated during one her visits to Switzerland.
5) Mozart was a freemason. On Sunday evening, David headed to the central train station to catch the “CAT” out to the airport. I walked with him so he wouldn’t get lost, as David is known for easily getting lost in both familiar and unknown cities. After our goodbyes, I walked back through Stadtpark, but then it started to drizzle and I had left my umbrella in the hotel room, so I hurried through the city centre to Mozart’s house. The house was fairly empty. In fact, the only other tourist inside was a fellow Texan wearing a Longhorn sweater. I was too depressed about Saturday’s game to say anything, plus we both had our audio guide headsets on, so I wasn’t even sure he’d hear me talking to him. It’s funny that on a random Sunday evening in Vienna, I can meet a fellow UT alumnus in Mozart’s house. It is a small world after all. I had toured Mozart’s Salzburg house with my family about 10 years ago on our big European vacation. This was very similar, except the apartment was much nicer. Mozart was a struggling artist in Salzburg and hit the big-time in Vienna. One of the things I either didn’t remember from my Mozart Salzburg tour, or learned on Sunday, was that Mozart was a freemason. As part of the exhibit, his admission certificate into a Masonic lodge was on display, as was an attendance form with his signature. I always associate the Masons with the US founding fathers and myths straight out of "National Treasure" or The Lost Symbol. But I guess this secret society has a lot more famous international members than I thought!
Mozart's Home
Here are some more highlights:
We had dinner at Figlmuller on Friday night. This restaurant is known for its HUGE Wiener Schnitzels. Even though David was hungry, we split this one!
St. Stephansdom is in the heart of Vienna. It was almost destroyed during WWII but has been restored. Its soaring spires are currently under construction.
On Sunday afternoon, David and I were lucky enough to score tickets to the Spanish Riding School. Cameras are restricted during the performance because it distracts the horses, but this is the Winter Riding Hall where the entertainment took place.
The State Opera House
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