Leanne and Don, life across the pond: Vienna weekend

This past weekend we when to Vienna Austria, a city with lots of history and sweets. And i did my best to try as many of them as I could. This shop was a short walk from our hotel and if i had another month i may have been able to try everything they made.

After arriving late Thursday we pushed on to Friday to do a city walk. The walk started at the Opera House, opened in 1869. It plays an opera 300 days a year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_State_Opera

This is us at the side of the opera house.

Farther down the walk was St. Stephen's Cathedral

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Stephen%27s_Cathedral,_Vienna

As with most large old churches it took years finish. This was started in 1137 and after a few fires and other problems they stopped working on it in 1511.

This side shows the damage from pollution, acid rain from car exhaust and other things has turned the stone black. They are working on it to get it back to the white stone.

The inside of the church was one of the most beautiful ones we have seen. There were stone carving everywhere,.

This pulpit was carved from three pieces of sand stone.

The roof is made up of 230,000 glazed tiles and there is a bell in the south tower that weighs 44,380 pounds. Its the second larges swinging bell in the world. The north tower in this picture took 65 years to build.

From the church we walked down one of the pedestrian streets.

Well it was supposed to be a pedestrian only street, this guy was making a delivery.

There are old and new buildings, the old were very ornate. While the new ones that came after the bombing of WWll were more modern.

The tour book said to stop here for small finger sandwiches and beer.

They were right about the finger sandwiches.

but the beers were small too.

Rest rooms in Vienna are self explanatory, you either stand

or sit.

We take a lot of pictures and get

photo bombed all the time. The guy over my shoulder is mad about something.

and this guy either has a migraine or is blowing his nose with out tissue.

This is the Plague column

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pests%C3%A4ule,_Vienna

This was build after the plague if 1679

St. Peters was is jsut down the street from the plague column.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterskirche,_Vienna

It was started in 1701 and mostly finished by 1722.

The inside was very small but very beautiful. Every where you looked there was something.

Next was the Hofburg, a complex of palaces where the Habsburg emperors lived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofburg_Palace

The long and short of it is, its good to be the emperor.

The buildings are mostly used for museums now.

Time for lunch, Leanne had Wiener Schnitzel with potatoes. The potatoes were like German potato salad with out the bacon. So i guess it would be called Austrian potato salad.

I had goulash, not at all like what we make, it was great.

A night view of the opera house.

We did take a long break between lunch and dinner, we just didn't take any pictures.

For dinner Leanne had a sausage platter with three types, that was fantastic. I had a meat stew platter with horseradish bread. The horseradish bread is a mixture of bread, horseradish, sour cream and salt and pepper. An interesting first taste, but the rest went very fast.

Breakfast on Saturday we sat a an open air cafe. I had a view of the dessert counter and Lee (as you can see by the reflection) had a view of the opera house.

This is how my breakfast came,

and this is Leanne's. We also had some pastry.

We would do a hop on hop off bus tour today. Yesterday we did the blue line and today we did the red line. Both lines give you a tour of different sections of the city.

A ride past the opera house

and then past a church. This one we did not go in.

And more museums.

After bus tour we had a piece of Sacher-Torte. This is the signature dessert of Vienna. Two layers of cake with a layer of apricot jam and then covered with dark chocolate icing. Yes it was good.

While we were eating a lady in the table next to us had her purse stolen.

After this Leanne and I went to two different museums, she went to look at paintings and statues and i went to the royal treasury.

Besides all the jewels and stuff the had this sword and sheath . Legend states that it was made from a unicorn horn. Its actually a narwhal tusk.

Well all the talk about the Opera house, lead up to this. We would be going to see Fidelio, the only opera Beethoven wrote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidelio

The Opera house was built in 1869 and plays 300 shows a year.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vienna_State_Opera

We were in the upper deck but the seats were great.

We had a great view of the orchestra. The string section had 36 violins and to see them all playing at the same time was great.

As we left we made our way to the sausage stand. We noticed that every time we walked by it there was a line--a long line. So when in Vienna do as they do.