Through My Eyes: Europe trip day 12: Vienna

On Wednesday, Ben had to work from the hotel, so the boys and I headed out to Vienna city center. The first place we went to was the Museum of Military History. This is apparently the oldest museum in Vienna, housed inside the old Arsenal building. The museum documents the history of the Habsburg Monarchy and the military history of Austria from the late 16th century until 1945.

The boys were mostly interested to see the museum's "Tank garden," which has lots of tanks, including those of Russian origin.

Walking up to the entrance, you pass this collection of cannon:

(Those cobblestones, by the way, are ubiquitous in Europe, and absolutely awful to wheel on with the wheelchair.)

After getting tickets, the boys headed straight out to see the tanks. Joseph took pictures of his favorites.

While the boys were outside, I toured the inside.
The inside of the building is so cool.

The "Hall of Generals."

Hall I – From the Thirty Years' War to Prince Eugene (16th century–1700)

In the exhibit about WWI, Franz Ferdinand's car is on display!

Then, it was into the historic city center! We found a place to park in an underground structure, and came up right next to the opera house which is on the Ring Road surrounding old Vienna.

We walked in, and following my guide book map, our first stop was Oberlaa bakery, where we shared a few treats, including Macarons, which I had never had before!

Then, it was on to St. Michael's church, which was a little tricky to find. I was expecting a stand-alone building, but many of the buildings in Vienna are like this-- all built up one against the other.
St. Michael's church is of the Romanesque style and is one of the oldest in Vienna. It was started in about 1220, and went through various changes until the 1790's, and has stayed the same since then.

One really cool thing about this church is the organ. It's the largest baroque style organ in Vienna, and was played by Haydn when he was 17. Mozart's Requiem was also played here for the first time at his funeral in 1791.

But the main reason we came here, was for the famous crypt, Michaelergruft, located underneath the church.

This is the entrance to the crypt.
The crypt had particular climatic conditions that allowed over 4.000 corpses to be buried here. Nice, huh? The boys went on a tour of the crypt without me, since it was not at all wheelchair accessible. I took these pictures off of Google images.

See how close the ceiling is to the floor? That's because the real floor is several feet below. Thousands of bodies were interred here, one on top of the other, until the "floor" was raised to the point it is here. You can see the pile of bones off to the side.

The boys thought it was awesome, of course. :-)

Meanwhile, I wandered around the city a bit, wheeling down one of the most expensive shopping streets in Europe.

When I collected the boys from their crypt tour, we headed deeper into the city toward St. Stephen's Cathedral.
It was crowded and HOT!

But soon we saw it-- one of the places I remember most from my trip to Vienna as a 12-year-old with my orchestra.

(this is obviously not my picture, but there was no way to get a picture with the entire building in it with the angle and lenses I had to work with)

Not too far from St. Stephens is Mozart's house! We didn't go inside, but I did get some pictures of the boys outside.

Next, we walked back past St. Stephens, and over to St. Peter's Cathedral.
St. Peter's is a very small cathedral, especially compared with some, but it is gorgeous, and a perfect example of the Baroque style.

The incredibly detailed and ornate decoration inside was really overwhelming.
The domed ceiling of this church was also spectacular.

And then it was time for lunch!!
We got food at a street vendor (Würstelstand). Mosey got bratwurst, and Brigham and Joseph got paninis.
This pigeon got crumbs. :-)

Our next destination was the Hoffburg Palace!
It is huge!

This is the front, facing Ring Street (not my picture).

There are a couple of museums that now occupy much of the interior. We got tickets to the Sisi museum.

Elisabeth of Austria (Sisi) was a Bavarian duchess before she married the Hapsburg Emperor Franz Joseph I when she was just 16 years old, in 1854. She was a tragic figure-- unhappy most of her life. Her overbearing mother-in-law took over raising her daughters, and her only son killed himself and his mistress. She was beautiful, but became obsessive about it, never allowing herself to be photographed or painted after the age of 32. She spent many hours each day getting her hair done, and exercising to keep her figure. The museum did a good job documenting her sad life.
The museum experience started out with several large rooms exhibiting the royal porcelain and silver (and gold!) collection. How much wealth there was simply in their dishes!

The tour then took us through several of the royal apartments and other rooms.

This was Sisi's dressing and exercise room. Look at the rings under the door and the exercise bars!

Franz Joseph's office.

I loved the murals in this room!

One of my favorite rooms had replicas of Sisi's gowns. I would have gone ga-ga over these as a little girl.

I loved this museum, but I think the boys were done a little sooner than I was. :-) I found them waiting for me in the courtyard.

Everyone was tired at this point, so after walking around the palace (and seeing this lovely sculpture), we headed back to the car.

Look at the detail on this guy's face!!

We walked through the lovely Volksgarten.

Once back in the car, we drove around the Ringstrasse, grabbing glimpses of

Either the history museum or the natural history museum (they look the same and are right across from each other)

Parliament building

Rathaus (City Hall)

And the Burgtheater. The entire Ringstrasse is full of one historic sight after another.

Back at the hotel, the boys were happy to eat dinner and relax the rest of the evening.

Meanwhile, Ben was done with his work, and anxious to see Vienna before we left in the morning. So, back in the car we went! I tried to repeat the route I took the boys, but it was evening and many things had closed. But we saw enough for him to get the gist of Vienna.

A nice lady took our picture in front of the Plague Column.

We ate dinner at a delicious restaurant. This is the Wienerschnitzel that Ben got.

And me with our new favorite drink-- Apfelsaft. No, not beer, although it looks like it. :-) It's a really refreshing carbonated apple juice, basically.