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Published: October 16th 2009
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taxi
Mom in nice Mercedes taxi on our way to the train station Day 7 (Friday, September 25, 2009)
Today we went to Vienna! It was kind of a last minute decision but I’m glad we went. Several people told us that the trains were nice and that the ride to Vienna had beautiful scenery. Sure enough, the train ride was nice! Much more comfortable than the plane and the view was very nice. This was the first time I had ever ridden on a train. I always wanted to ride in one thanks to Harry Potter. haha. Next time I will have to sit in one of the cabins to get the full Harry Potter effect. Yes, I know Im a dork. 😊 We got there around noon and were only going to be there for the day so we didn’t have a lot of time. I knew I had to at least show mom and dad St. Stephen’s Cathedral located in the Stephensplatz. The architectural style is a mixture of Romanesque and Gothic. The towers and the colorful roof are just a couple characteristics of the church. When we first got there a service was going on, so we walked around for a little bit while we waited for it to
end. Unfortunately, there weren’t any tours in English on this particular day and we couldn’t get to the alter because a large section was roped off. We ended up doing a tour of the catacombs instead. Eek! Why did I suggest this? It was very interesting but I don’t think I need to do that again. The catacombs are below the church and it is where archbishops are buried. There are urns containing the preserved organs of members of the Habsburg dynasty. This is also where bodies were moved after the outbreak of the bubonic plague. I won’t go into any more detail about it now. If you want to know feel free to ask. But I warn you it isn’t very pleasant! We weren allowed to take pictures. Sorry!
After the catacombs we grabbed a quick lunch and did some souvenir shopping for the family before heading to Schloss Shonbrunn. We toured the imperial apartments of Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife, Elizabeth, Maria Theresa, Franz Karl, and others. I think we toured 40 rooms in total and learned of many historical events (we weren allowed to take pictures here either). When we were done with the tour
we went for a walk through the gardens and walked to the Gloriette. Everything was so beautiful. By the time we were done we had to hurry back to the train station. The day really flew by. We were hoping that there would be a later train so we could fit in maybe one more thing but there wasn’t a later one. We actually got to the station just in time to catch the next train. We ran to the train and got on just in time but unfortunately it was a much slower train than the one we had ridden to Vienna. We didn’t get back to Salzburg until about 10:30pm. We hadn’t eaten since much earlier in the day so we were feeling pretty hungry. Most restaurants close around 10pm but luckily there was an Italian restaurant around the corner from our hotel that was still open. We shared a pizza and then headed back to the hotel.
It ended up being I nice trip and I’m glad mom and dad got at least a taste of Vienna. I really like it there but we immediately noticed how different it was from Salzburg. Vienna is the largest
city in Austria and I think Salzburg comes in around #4. I say that Vienna is the New York City of Austria. We had gotten used to the slow pace in small Salzburg, the cleanliness, and the friendly people. Vienna was quite the opposite. I think the very first rude person we encountered in Austria was a man at the train station in Vienna. It was so shocking because we hadn’t seen anything like that in Salzburg. But of course this is based only on the short time we were there and that is only one grumpy man. We also had to pay to use the public bathrooms. I couldn’t believe it! Overall it was still a great day. I know I will have to go back. There are just too many things to see!
These are all the pics I have for now. Sorry!
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