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Published: February 24th 2011
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Hi All,
This morning we headed out early to meet Reinhard again. We started off by heading to the Secession building. We were lucky that it was sunny today as the building has gold details and it appeared to glow in the sunlight. Next we went to Karls Kirche. The builling is an old Catholic church with a painted ceiling. The attraction of this church is that they have built an elevator in the centre, taking you to a landing at the ceiling where you can get out and have a close look at the amazing art work. There would also have been a nice view from the top, however the windows were covered by chicken wire. We spent a little while here before heading to see the state and national opera houses along with other various music halls and the national symphony orchestra builing. We had a look at the program to see if there would be something of interest for us to see, but there wasn't.
From here we made a brief stop at Albertina, a museum, before heading on to see the Spanish Riding school. We decided that we would come back in the morning as
you can watch them train for 12 euro. After this we were all ready for a mid morning snack, so we headed to a cafe. We ordered Sachetorte, which is a traditional Austrian chocolate cake layered with jam. After enjoying our cake and thawing out we headed to Peters kirche. It was just another catholic church, however there were two mummies from a Roman catacomb. They were painted skeletons, wering face masks and gloves. They were interesting, if not a little creepy.
We walked from here to the Stefansdom, a gothic style church. There was a mass on, so we couldn't get right into the church, but we were able to climb the narrow 343 stairs to the top for a great view of Vienna.
The next stop was St Ruprechts, the oldest church in vienna, built in the 19th century. Unfortunately it was closed, so were were unable to see insinde. After this we hopped on a train and said our goodbyes to Reinhard. We took the train to Schonburnn castle. From memory this is the main residence for Kaiser Franz Joseph, some big shot in the now non existant Austria - Hungary Empire. So the place
has been turned into a musuem for all thing regal and the extensive gardens have been opened up to the public. We ventured around and had a look at all the fountains and statues, also included was a hedge maze which was unfortunetly closed due to winter. Did we mention it was freezing in Vienna. All the fountains were frozen just to give you an idea. We walked up a large hill in the garden which the Gloriatina is built, basically a glorifiedsun room which has been turned into a cafe. The hill did offer very long views over Vienna and the surrounding hills. This must be the only day in the last week which hasn't had thick mist. After a few hours in the gardens (they are huge) we headed back on the U Bahn to finalise tomorrow plans.
Tomorrow after seeing the morning session at the Spanish Riding School wewill be heading to the Belvedere and anything else we can fit in before catching our overnight train to Florence. So we won't be writing an entry tomorrow.
Till next time,
Nick and Holly.
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St. Ruprechtskirche
St. Ruprecht church: built in the 11th century. :-)