A Weekend In Vienna

Rathaus at night

Ah Vienna. What a beautiful, beautiful city. Last year at this time Dave and I were traveling through central Europe and spent a weekend in Vienna. We absolutely fell in love with its old world charm, touches of Bohemia, coffee houses, architecture, glorious statues everywhere (previous post) and endless gardens. One weekend was not enough and I am sure we'll be back to visit.

We spent our first evening in the old city center at an outside film festival in the Rathaus Square. We slid in to the audience with the locals and enjoyed the city through their eyes. Something that I just love to do. 

The following day we got up early to explore the city and returned to find a jazz festival back at the gardens that surround the Rathaus. There was a light rain, but no one cared. We grabbed a late lunch and a table under an umbrella and sat back to listen and enjoy the music. We were there all afternoon and into the evening just listening to great music, sampling local food, wine and beer. One of things about the places we visited last summer was that at the heart of so many of the cities it wasn't an endless tourist trap full of souvenir shops. It was a place that the locals still enjoyed themselves. As much as I love to travel, I absolutely hate feeling like a tourist. 

Each morning we found another one of the coffee houses of Vienna to try with my favorite being Cafe Mozart. We tried the more famous Cafe Central, but it was absolutely over run with tourists. Cafe Mozart was the right blend of tradition, amazing food, perfectly steeped tea and a current newspaper in English. Exactly how I wanted to spend Sunday morning. After breakfast we took off for more walking through the side streets of Vienna. Anyone who follows me on Pinterest knows I'm slightly obsessed with doors. The older the better for me. I love how they capture history and architectural beauty. 

We ended our weekend with a walk through the gardens of Schonbrunn Park and a tour of the palace. Hard to believe anyone lived this way, but leave it to the Habsburgs. The grounds were originally created as a fenced hunting grounds, and a little hunting lodge Palace was built as an addition to the original mansion. Seriously, click the link and check out how expansive this place is. The shaded walking gardens were beautiful and a welcomed relief in the heat of summer. We spent quite a bit of time strolling through them as we waited our turn to tour the palace. It was redecorated in the 1740s in a Neoclassical style with plenty of ornate gilding. Not really my style, and I would have been happy to just keep wandering the park for the afternoon. 

We loved our time in Vienna and have since talked about returning and spending more like a month to explore the city as there is just so much to see and do in this beautiful place. For the rest of photos from the weekend you can see them over on my Pinterest.

They Are Watching

Karlovy Vary Spa, Czech Republic

Vienna City Center Skyline

Today is Friday the 13th, and a great date to post on this theme on 'the watchers.' Here is a fun fact, my mom was born on Friday the 13th, not in November, but in January. I actually never knew that until after she passed. Not sure why? But she never mentioned it. It was my dad that said something a few years ago with just a hint of a raised eyebrow as if to say 'well you know why she wouldn't want to talk about it.' Hmmm, actually I'm not in the least bit superstitious. I find the concept to be a complete waste of time. One of my girlfriends growing up had a habit of not wanting to walk on either side of a pole. So if for some reason we got out of the car and I was on one side of the parking meter with her on the other, she'd come around to my side and say 'bread and butter." Can someone please explain what exactly that corrects in the world of superstition?

So the watchers. We found statues everywhere we went in Europe, but one of the most curious places was on top of buildings? They appeared to be teetering on the edge of the roof, as though they might take one more step and come tumbling down? We saw them all throughout our trip. We saw them in every country we were in. We saw them on top of buildings, on the front of them, above the doorways, on the sides, between windows. They seem to be a very common architectural design.

Vienna

Austrian Parliament Building

I went in search of why exactly they would be so popular. The best answer I got was that during the Middle Ages as churches were being built statuary became a popular architectural design element. They used the buildings themselves as a canvas for a range of subjects from complex theological ideas to biblical tales to whimsical creatures. And I would say we saw all of this from the building in Rothenburg with the seven deadly sins in the facade, the castles of Bavaria, many of the buildings in the old center of Vienna, to the spa in Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. They were simply everywhere.

The one in Rothenburg took over the entire front of the building called Baumeisterhaus or the Master-Builder's House. The facade includes the seven virtues (kindheartedness, motherliness, gentleness, temperance, courage, justice and wisdom - yes I had to look that up) as well as the seven deadly sins (gluttony, deception, falsehood, greed, lust, sloth and vanity - yes also looked this up). Gotta love a good medieval statue series to play out a few biblical stories. Particularly when it is now on the front of a restaurant to remind you of the sin of gluttony before you walk in the front door?

Baumeisterhaus

You can see the influence of Romans and Greeks in many of the statues, particularly in Vienna. Ah, Vienna. I believe it was my favorite city of the trip. It has such style, elegance and beauty. Dave and I absolutely fell in love with this city. I captured just a small sample of all the statues like this random blue Greek God (perhaps Hercules?) on a corner building, or like the Caryatid Pillars on a side entrance of the Austrian Parliament building. Vienna is a city of statues, and they were stunning.

The picture at the top of the post is one of the 12 statues representing the months of the year, which sit on top of the Mill Colonnade in central Karlovy Vary. You can read more background on the town in one of my previous posts. So why 12 statues representing months? I have no idea. None of the history to the town told me why the architect (Josef Zitek who also designed Prague's National Theater) decided to include them. Zitek was known for his Neo-Renaissance style; popular in the 19th Century throughout Europe for important public buildings like opera houses, theaters and palaces. Sometimes my study of history gives me the answers I'm looking for, and sometimes it doesn't. I don't think I really got a straight answer on all these watchers, but I did really love seeing and photographing them.

People Watching, Dogs, Bikes and Street Musicians

Fussen, Germany Boy in Lederhosen

Fussen, Germany Medieval Band

Nothing like getting out on foot to explore a city. Central Europe with its old medieval town squares is a perfect place to do just that. Along with some fantastic people watching, a little dog watching and plenty of street performers to throw in a little ambiance. 

One of my favorite pictures from our trip was this one of a young boy fully decked out in Lederhosen complete with suspenders. The pants are long, heavy leather (not the traditional shorts). You can see by how he stands that he was feeling quite proud of his outfit. I love how Dad is left holding the pack back because it just didn't go with the assemble. 

Fussen, German Bike Scene

So what was the boy and the rest of the crowd so intensely watching? Why a German medieval band of course. They were really rocking out with a very rhythmic beat getting lots of people in the crowd clapping along. In every city we walked there was music. Whether traditional, medieval, classical or otherwise. It was lively and festive and I so enjoyed it as we explored the streets of Europe. 

Accordion Player in Fussen

Notice all the bikes piled up there off to the side of the band? That was a curiosity as well. It would seem that Germans really, really (I could probably throw in another 'really' here) like their bikes. We saw groups on bikes, families on bikes, vacationers on bikes and well pretty much everyone seemed to have them packed on top or in back of their cars. I suppose with all the narrow streets it probably makes sense. 

Harp Player in Bratislava, Slovakia

At one point in our trip we were traveling from the Rhine River Valley up through a pass to the other side to the Moselle Valley on our way to Castle Burg Eltz (blog post on Burg Eltz). As we were cresting the pass and coming down into the Mosselle Valley an older German man was biking toward us and promptly jumped off his bike and starting to wave his hands at us up over his head. A universal sign for STOP. Which we did. Only to find out that he spoke only German, understandably since we were in fact in Germany. But he was speaking quickly and very loudly. Apparently he believed if he increased the volume it would help us understand him better. It didn't. After roughly 15 minutes of this we decided to roll up the window and continue on. As we started the steep decline into the Moselle Valley we realized that the road was completely washed out. Oh! That is what he was screaming about. However the road had narrowed to slightly more than a single lane of switchbacks with absolutely no shoulder to speak of. That makes for an impossible situation to 'K Turn' to head back the way we came. So what do you do? We put it into low drive and slowly, slowly back your way up through switchbacks backwards. The look of satisfaction on the German man's face as we passed him again spoke volumes.

Violins in Vienna, Austria

Fussen, Germany Dog Scene

We thought we were being very smart to bring our own GPS with us to Europe downloaded ahead of time with all the local maps. And it was incredibly helpful to have directions given to us (in English) along our drive. But it failed us when it came to all the local construction on the German roads. We lost several hours on this back tracking, but it was a beautiful place to get stuck!

One other thing we noticed was that dogs are very prevalent everywhere we went. People bring them out to pubs, to walk the city even in to restaurants. We would see waiters slip water bowls under the table for the dog curled up at the owners feet. That is one thing we always found difficult traveling around the US is that it is very hard to bring your loved dog with you on a family vacation. Not the case in Europe!

My Obsession with Doors

Prague, Czech Republic

Prague Church of St. Joseph

I was really captured by all the architecture throughout our trip this last August. I keep taking random pictures of doors, statues and ceilings. Thankfully the hubby was pretty patient through most of it. But by the time we hit our last town, he was just starting to walk away. 

For me, it was just and endless smorgasbord of old world beauty to photograph. And I was happily snapping away lost in the moment. It seemed like every time we turned a corner there was a row of new doors, arches, columns and statues to explore. I forget just how new our country is until I visit some other place. Honestly, pretty much anywhere in Europe or Asia is much, much older than the US. And I fall in love with the detail, the tooling, the weathering of the ages and the patina left behind. I have an extensive collection of doors from around the world over on Pinterest. Yes, I am obsessed. If you want proof, just click the link. I can't help it. I love to wonder about the stories of who lived behind the doors. 

At the end of our trip, my husband and I were going through our photos and Dave said "our pictures are so different from each other." He has a tendency to want to pull back and get the full landscape shot, where I want to get up close and study the character of a building. I do just love the detail. The nicks and stories of who was there before me. 

I am still trying to get all our photos uploaded over on Pinterest. Combined we have a pretty nice collection of our whirlwind trek through central Europe. But I will spare you all reading the blog of the massive amount of pictures we took. If you want more doors, just click over to Pinterest.