Vienna, Melk, and Krems

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Day 20 (Wednesday, September 24th)

We awoke to our first morning in Vienna with lovely rain showers outside; much to our annoyance, the wet weather seemed to be following us around from country to country.

As we only had two full days in Vienna, I had quite a busy schedule planned for the day.

After eating a crappy 3.50 Euro breakfast at our hostel (not worth the cost and over-priced; we could have bought what we ate for much cheaper at a grocery store), we left and used the subway system to make our way into the central part of town, also known as the Ringstrasse. During the 1860’s, the Emperor of Austria (Franz Josef) decided to tear down the medieval wall surrounding the core of the city. In its place, a new circular road was created that was almost three miles long. This road was given the name “Ringstrasse” and nearly all of the buildings that face the road in either direction were built during the same time frame. Per the advice of Rick Steves, we hopped on tram #2 across from the Opera house and rode it all the way around, eventually getting off about 30 minutes later. This ride provided an overview of the beautiful architecture and numerous statues that lined the boulevard.

From the Opera, we walked down Karntner Strasse, stopping at a few places of interest including the Monument Against War & Fascism, the Kaisergruft Crypt, and St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

The Monument Against War & Fascism was a four part statue that was created to honor the victims of war and violence. The monument was located on top of a location where hundreds of people were killed when a WWII bomb attack destroyed the building they had been hiding in.

Next, we visited the Kaisergruft Crypt, which was the final resting place to several dozen family members of the Hapsburg dynasty. I have visited other such crypts in Europe, but I was surprised when I saw the first aisle of Hapsburg tombs. Instead of being made from different colors of marble as I had seen in the other crypts, these were made from bronze and each had its own unique and intricate carving. Upon arrival, we had purchased a .50 Euro map that included a chart of the family tree of the Hapsburg family and the names of every single person whose coffin was located in the crypt. This chart proved very useful as I was more easily able to understand who belonged to whom as I was not familiar with the Hapsburg monarchy compared to others, such as the British Royal Family.

After touring the crypt, we eventually made our way to St. Stephen’s Cathedral, known in German as Stephansdom. We were both extremely disappointed to see that the exterior of the church was extremely dirty and covered in black, presumably from the years of pollution and smog. There were a few areas of clean creamy stone and scaffolding in other parts, so we both hoped that they were in the process of cleaning the building. The black color sorely detracted from the beauty of the building, at least in our opinions. The interior of the church wasn’t much to jump at either; while it wasn’t as dirty as the exterior, it definitely needed a cleaning as well, as it felt very dark and dreary inside.

From the church, we headed back out into the rain and walked to the massive Hofburg complex. We walked into the palace through the gate from Michaelplatz. We veered right, making our way to the entrance of the Imperial Apartments. This part of the palace contained three separate parts; Silver Collection, Sisi Museum, and the Imperial Apartments, and we gained entrance to all three via the “Sisi Ticket”. The tour began in the Silver Collection where we toured room after room filled with thousands of pieces from the Hapsburg's personal collections of silver, gold, glass, and porcelain. When the monarchy collapsed in 1918, the government took control of all of their possessions; as a result, most of the sets are complete and in mint condition.

Next, we walked through the Sisi Museum, which was dedicated to the life of Empress Elisabeth (more affectionately known as Sisi), wife of Emperor Franz Josef. The museum very thoroughly explained the private life and times of Sisi. After her assassination in 1898, she was almost instantaneously venerated in the press, given much more time and coverage than anyone had bothered to give her while she was alive. All of this new attention created the legend of Sisi, most of which was actually untrue. The museum does a good job a demystifying Sisi and showing the person she really was, not the one that so many people associate her with.

At the end of the Sisi Museum was the start of the Imperial Apartments. The tour took us along the private rooms of Emperor Franz Josef and Empress Elisabeth. I thought the most interesting rooms were Sisi’s dressing/exercise room, Franz Josef’s study, and the dining room. I learned that it would take Sisi’s servants a few hours every day to work on her hair, as she read books and learned foreign languages. In the same room, were two wooden structures on which she would exercise every day, much to the disgrace of the rest of the royal family. Franz Josef’s study was filled with family photos and several portraits of Sisi. Lastly, the dining room was lavishly set-up for an everyday family dinner; silver and gold dishes were only used for formal state dinners.

Next, we walked to the Treasury, which contained the crown jewels, swords, coronation vestments, and a smattering of other highly cherished valuables that once belonged to the Hapsburg's. My favorite items were the Throne Cradle, baptismal blankets from the 1700’s, and the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor. The Throne Cradle was built at the request of Napoleon, who had married into the Hapsburg family. His son was born in 1811, titled King of Rome and used this cradle which was in remarkably good shape and incredibly gorgeous with intricate details. The baptismal blankets were used by the royal family during the 18th century and were a beautiful, soft pink color with very light gold embellishments. The crown of the Holy Roman Emperor was made in the 10th century and was covered with lots of gold and jewels. It was utterly amazing to me that the item could survive for over 1,000 years and be in such good condition. Most all of the items in the Treasury were in excellent condition as they were only used during ceremonial times and otherwise stored.

Our last stop of the day was to the Imperial Furniture Museum, which we were allowed to gain entry to at “no cost” due to the Sisi ticket we had purchased earlier in the day. This museum was home to the “leftover” collection of the furniture from the Hapsburg dynasty. The Hapsburg family had several homes sprinkled throughout their empire, but only the Hofburg Palace was permanently furnished. The rest of their palaces had to be furnished with the assistance and help of the “Depot of Court Movables” whose responsibility was maintaining, organizing, and keeping inventory of all of the royal family’s items. The first part of the museum almost looked like a warehouse, with the furniture stacked closely together. As the museum continued on, it was set-up and presented as separate rooms. Unfortunately, we arrived late to the museum and only had about 30 minutes to walk around before it closed. We didn’t get to quite see everything I had wanted, but we will make sure to stop by on our next visit to Vienna.

Day 21: (Thursday September 25th, 2008)

We awoke on our second morning in Vienna to yet more rain showers. The plan for today was to take a day-trip out of Vienna into the Danube Bend region, visiting the towns of Melk and Krems. From Vienna, we took a train out to Melk, arriving about 1 ¼ hours later.

Melk is a small town that is most famous for its abbey, Stift Melk. From the train station, we walked downhill towards the old town center. Along the way, we could see the Stift Melk in the fog-covered distance. I kept keeping my fingers crossed that the sun would somehow magically appear during our short time in the city, but Mike told me that the situation was hopeless.

It only took about a ten minutes walk to reach the beautiful yellow baroque abbey. We signed up for a guided English tour as we figured it would allow us to learn about the abbey much more so than just by using our guidebooks.

When the tour started, we realized we were the only ones signed up for the English tour, so it was just us and the guide. The guide spoke English very well, but with a tremendously thick accent; at times, neither Mike nor myself could differentiate the words that came from her mouth. From the guide we learned that the abbey was still a working monastery, and also contained a school. The building that stands today was built entirely in the baroque style between 1702 and 1738 after a fire had destroyed the original one. The tour began in the Imperial Wing, which once housed apartments for the monarchy.

Next, we walked through two of the impressive libraries, both of which had gorgeous ceiling frescoes (the abbey currently contains more than 90,000 books in its entire collection). The tour ended at the church, which was an incredible example of what Baroque architecture and art should look like. We arrived at the church just in time to hear the 12:00 prayer delivered by the monks. The highlight of the prayer was the music that was played from the church organ; I will never forget the beautiful sounds that echoed throughout the church. As I listened to each song, my eyes wandered around the interior of the building, usually making their way up to the impressive ceiling frescoes. I sat in the pew, thinking that I was quite possibly hearing the same songs played from the organ that may have been played when the church first opened in the mid 1700’s. I then pictured all of the women with their tall coiffured hair and wide but exquisitely designed dresses; and the men with their white wigs and tail coats. I am completely enamored by the baroque time period of the 1700’s and also fascinated by every aspect including architecture, design, the furniture, clothing, lifestyle, etc. Sitting in the church while the music played gave me a small insight as to what life must have felt like during a church service in the time period. It was an incredibly amazing experience for me.

After visiting the church, the original plan was to walk through the town and then take a river boat cruise from Melk to Krems, which would last about 1 ¾ hours. However, as we walked out of the church into the pouring rain, I decided that the weather conditions would not make for a pleasant boating experience. Aside from that, the cloudy gray skies would not provide the backdrop I was hoping for on my Danube River experience. I had reviewed the weather report the day prior, and it had said that the sun was to appear the next day, so we decided to go back to Vienna, and try the boat cruise the following day in hopes of experiencing more cooperative weather.

So instead, we hopped on a train and headed back to Vienna. Since the excursion was moved to the following day, we had to take away and complete several of the visits that were to occur that day.

Our first stop was the Vienna Opera House (known as Staatsoper) where we hoped to take the 15:00 English tour. Unfortunately, as we arrived we found out that tours were only offered on certain days of the week, and this day wasn’t one of them. As we would be completing the day-trip and a visit to Schonbrunn Palace the next day, a tour of the Opera House wasn’t feasible. I was slightly disappointed, but since we had toured the sumptuous Opera House in Budapest, I wasn’t too sad.

Next, we walked to the Lipizzaner Museum which currently houses the horses of the Austrian court and information on their 400 year old history. As you may remember from reading one of my prior entries, we had visited one of the Lipizzaner stud farms in Slovenia. The place I am referring to in Vienna however is different. We appeared at the doors of the museum, but the doors were shut. We were slightly perplexed as it stated in the guidebooks that the museum was open until 18:00 every day. Finally, a worker from the museum came out. I asked her if this was the “museum” and she said yes. When I asked if we could go in she informed me in her broken English that it was for groups only. Huh? That didn’t make any sense! As we had already seen the Lipizzaner horses in person, we weren’t too offended and went on our way.

At this point, we were both quite hungry, so we decided to pay a visit to Naschmarkt, which was an outdoor food and produce market. The market was created in 1898 when Vienna made the decision to cover up the Vienna River; the square they built eventually turned into Naschmarkt. Mike was hoping to find a sausage stand and I was just hoping to find edible food pronto, as my hypoglycemia was setting in quickly. We did not see any sausage stands, but we did end up buying some donut holes that were covered in a cinnamon sugar mix. They did not taste like donuts back home though; they were much sweeter and the texture was more dense. We also ate a late lunch of pasta. Mike had spaghetti with Bolognese sauce and I had taligiatte with a pesto cream sauce. Both plates were delicious and cheap!

From the market, we walked to Karlskirche, a Baroque church whose interior was undergoing renovation during our visit. At first, I was disappointed when I saw all of the scaffolding as it “ruined” the photos I wanted to take. However, the church had taken advantage of all of the scaffolding and built in a temporary lift that allowed visitors to ride to a platform at the base of the dome. From this platform, we were several hundred feet above the church floor, which allowed us to be able to view the incredibly gorgeous ceiling frescoes up-close that they were restoring. From here, we were also able to walk up several hundred more feet to the very tip top of the dome; the walk up the wobbly stairs was extremely nerve-wracking and did not feel very safe to either one of us! It was mind-boggling for me to realize that I was essentially, in the same place that the original artists had been more than 250 years ago. Over the last few years, I have visited many impressive churches in Europe with intricate ceiling frescoes. However, seeing these frescoes up-close and personal gave me a huge appreciation for the artists who created them. I cannot begin to imagine how dangerous and how scary it must have been for those painters to stand on the wood scaffolding of their times and paint with their heads tilted up. They could not have possibly had a fear of heights; I was only up there for 20 minutes and my fear was kicking in hard and fast, and I was much more protected than they ever would have been! Once back down on the floor of the church, we were both amazed at how high we had been. This was one of the best experiences of our trip and I enjoyed every moment, even those when I was shaking with fright as I walked up the stairs!

From the church, we took the metro to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which currently houses the art collection that the Hapsburg family collected over a several hundred year period. As art museums can tend to easily overwhelm us, we used a self-guided tour written in Rick Steves Eastern European book to tour the museum. Along with this commentary, most of the paintings had small English descriptions listed, which helped us to appreciate each piece. We did not stare at every painting, but we did review a few that looked interesting to us. I am personally more drawn to landscape or city scenes and detailed portraits of people. The religious art is most difficult for me to understand and appreciate. After touring the first floor which was filled with European art, we walked down to the next level which had a surprisingly good exhibit on Egyptian art and artifacts, including a few mummies!

We spent about 2.5 hours at the museum, and then headed back in the pouring rain to our hostel. We only hoped that the weather reports were accurate and that we would finally see sun the next day.

Day 22: Friday, September 26th)

Unfortunately, we awoke to yet another cloudy morning in Vienna, although at least on this day, it wasn’t raining out. Our first visit was to Schonbrunn Palace, which was the former summer residence of the Hapsburg dynasty. The palace was located four miles from central Vienna, although it was just a few tram stops away for us from our hostel. When we had visited the Hofburg Palace a few days prior, we had purchased the “Sis Ticket” which also allowed entry to Schonbrunn. This ticket allowed us to bypass all those standing in line to purchase their tickets; a good tip for those wanting to beat the crowds and save a few Euros, as the combined ticket was cheaper than buying each ticket separately.

Entrance to the royal apartments also included a free audio guide, which I always thoroughly enjoy as the commentary helps bring a place to life. Most of the rooms we walked through were decorated in the Neo-Baroque style by Franz Josef during the late 19th century. However, there were a few rooms that had not been modified since the time of Maria Theresa and were a stunning example of the flamboyant Rococo style. I liked seeing the many paintings of Maria Theresa’s children that had been hung throughout the rooms, including a few of the notorious Marie Antoinette. Sadly, we were not allowed to take any photos within the apartments, so I only have exterior shots of the palace.

After touring the interior, we went outside and walked around the palace gardens, enjoying views of the flowers and Gloriette in the background. The monument was built to celebrate a largely unknown Austrian military victory but was mainly used for decoration. We did not go up to the Gloriette as it was a large walking distance away, but I read that there was supposed to be amazing views of Vienna from the location.

Overall, I thought Schonbrunn was beautiful. However, although it can compete against Versailles, it just won’t ever be able to win the battle of most extravagant and gorgeous palace ever. If you’ve never visited Versailles, you would be very impressed with Schonbrunn. If you are in Vienna, you should definitely make time in your schedule to complete the trip. However, as bias as I might be (and I know this Francophile is!), nothing can compare to the stunning beauty found at Versailles.

After leaving the palace, we headed to one of the train stations in Vienna called Franz Joseph Bahnhof. From here, we took a train back out to Austrian countryside to complete the day-trip that we were unable to finish the day prior due to the lovely weather. This time, we traveled to the city of Krems an der Donau (more commonly referred to as “Krems”). Krems is one of the larger sized cities in the region with a population of about 25,000.

From the train station, we walked into the central historic part of town that had cobbled streets, many Art Nouveau and Neo Baroque buildings, and an overall quaint and pleasant atmosphere . We toured the interior of two churches, one Baroque and the other Gothic. After walking through town for about 30 minutes, we began the long walk to the boat station.

From here, we had planned on taking a cruise down the Danube River to the town of Melk, where we had been the day before. There are currently two main boat companies that cruise the area between Melk and Krems. Once is DDSG Blue Danube and the other is Brandner. Both cost about the same price, offer similar routes, and usually leave the towns right after one another. We opted to go with Brandner, the only reason being that it left Krems five minutes before DDSG did. The cost for the 2.5 hour ride was 38 Euros ($57 USD) for both of us. The cost was steep, but the boat was immaculately well-cared for and it looked as though the interior had just been remodeled.

Along the cruise route, we stopped at numerous towns to pick-up or drop-off passengers, including Durnstein, Spitz, and several others. The views from the boat along the way were beautiful, and I really enjoyed watching the passing scenery. However, I was also slightly disappointed that it was cloudy and that the sun never appeared; the water is always most scenic when it’s lit up by the sun and blue skies.

We also ate an early dinner on-board. We each had a cup of soup; I had potato cream and Mike a beef broth soup with strips of pancake. For the main course, I had roast chicken over a bed of salad and vegetables and Mike had bratwurst with fries. Side note: In Austria, a bratwurst is actually what we in America know as a hot dog and nothing like the yummy Johnsonville types we are used to. For dessert, Mike ordered a banana split, which was quite delicious and even better when we found out they forgot to charge us for it!

In the end, cost aside, we were both extremely glad that we had modified our sightseeing itinerary in order to be able to participate in the river cruise. The water was smooth (very important for motion sickness-prone Mike), the passing scenery was gorgeous and constantly changing, and the boat itself was large and comfortable, but small enough to keep the huge crowds away. This experience made us think about the possibilities of one day taking a one or two week-long cruise down the Rhine or Danube Rivers in Europe. I’m not a fan of the large cruises, but I like the idea of being able to see the charming and picturesque towns sprinkled throughout the beautiful river valleys as I relax on board a boat. Many of these boat cruises stop for a full day in each town, allowing plenty enough time to see and fully enjoy the sights and scenes. This isn’t in our plans anytime in the near future, but hopefully it will be someday.

After the boat ride ended, we hurriedly walked through Melk as we had only 20 minutes until the train to Vienna arrived. We made it to the train station in time, with only three minutes to spare. The train back to Vienna took about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Once back in the city, we went back to our hostel and collapsed. We hadn’t been sleeping well during our stay in Vienna, so we were quite exhausted.

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Photos

Chapel in Melk Abbey
We were lucky enough to hear the beautiful church organs play.