vienna

vienna was the city i was most looking forward to visiting on spring break and it certainly did not disappoint. it was definitely my favorite city.  it's absolutely beautiful, like a german-speaking version of rome and paris combined.  it was the home to mozart, beethoven, marie antoinette, klimt, and centuries of hapsburg monarchs as well as breathtaking palaces, avenues and architecture.  

the first thing we did was go to st. stephan's, the magnificent gothic cathedral.  italian churches are lovely but the italians just don't do gothic like northern europeans.  italian gothic churches are much more colorful, but they don't have the same overwhelming feeling that northern european gothic churches do, as if every aspect of the architecture is reaching upward toward the heavens.  je l'adore.

we also went to beethoven's house where he wrote most of his famous symphonies and saw his piano and later went to the cemetery and saw his grave.  we also went to mozart's house where he composed the marriage of figaro but didn't see his grave because he gambled away his fortune so he was buried in an unmarked grave.

vienna is home to several wonderful art museums including the kunsthistorisches museum (aka museum of fine arts) which is actually the best museum i've ever been to.  i liked it so much that i went back the next day (and the lovely museum attendant let me in without having to buy another ticket).  not only is the building itself absolutely gorgeous but it is home to some of the great masterpieces of european painting (several brueghel's, a few velazquez's, three caravaggio's, two rooms full of ruben's, a vermeer, a rembrandt, some durer's, a bunch of titian's and raphael's madonna of the meadow). and i thought they did a really great job presenting the paintings with informative and interesting labels and there were lots of comfy upholstered benches on which to sit and contemplate paintings. also they had a great exhibit on monsters and mythical creatures in art which was perfect for kids. and the museum shop had so many postcards with high quality reproductions which was just the icing on the cake for my postcard collecting self.

the other art museum we went to was the belvedere (also gorgeous, see above) to see...(drum roll please)...

KLIMTS!!!!!!

i just about died.  i adore klimt's paintings soooooooo much.  unfortunately, the museum is under renovation so several weren't on display :(((( oh well! now i have an excuse to go back. honestly i don't know if i could have handled the excitement of seeing so much loveliness in one visit anyway. i was more than happy to spend extra time contemplating the kiss. 

vienna is known for its music, so when one is in vienna, one must go to the opera.  we got to see la
sonnambula by bellini and it was just excellent - and happy! everyone lives in the end.  the female lead was absolutely beautiful.  if i had a second life, i would love to be reincarnated as an opera singer; i love the melodrama.

our last day we visited schönbrunn palace, the residence of the hapsburg monarchs from the 17th century until the end of the 19th century.  when i found out that this was where marie antoinette grew up, i totally understood why she never really fit in in france.  schönbrunn is versailles with all its opulence but without its stuffiness. perhaps because each ruler added their own personal decorative touches through the decades, including prints made by the princes and princesses themselves (the royal version of hanging pictures on the fridge). it feels more like a home than versailles does.  it too was home to a fashionable and tradition-defying female ruler who met with a tragic end: elizabeth, empress of austria.

she was considered one of the most beautiful women in the world in her time (1837-1898) and she worked hard to keep it that way. she spent hours primping every day and caring for her hair which was down to her feet! she would often refuse to attend royal family dinners because she wanted to maintain her slender figure.  she was a huge trend-setter and her hobbies included traveling, riding horses and writing poetry in which she referred to herself as a fairy queen.  in the end, she was tragically stabbed to death with a metal file in geneva by an italian anarchist.  therefore, she's my new favorite tragicomic historical heroine. obvi.

two last things: one, a fabulous fountain which just one reason vienna reminded me of rome - unlike parisians, the viennese apparently embraced the baroque which i just love.  secondly, by chance we walked right by the stables where the famous lipizzaner stallions live! the horse-obsessed 10 year old in me couldn't have been more excited.  

the bottom line:  vienna is in my top 5 cities i've ever been to.  i absolutely want to go back and spend more time there.