Snow Day!

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For our last day in Vienna before heading on to Innsbruck, we were treated to a beautiful, cold winter's day. A chilly -4 Celsius at the warmest part, it snowed from about 10am and continuing even now as I write this, at 8pm. I believe by the end of the day the snow on the ground would have had to have been at least half an inch. It was cold, but very beautiful to wander the streets amongst the Christmas lights that are still up in Vienna.

Today was spent trying to cover as much as we could before we leave this beautiful city tomorrow. We had a plan, and knowing that there was no public holiday and no weekend that could interfere, we were ready to leave nice and early to ensure we got it all in.

Alas, not all of it was covered, but we still made good progress.

The day began with a short bus journey to the Military Museum. You may recall we attempted this on New Year's Day to find it closed, but thankfully today it was open. We arrived at 9:30am and there were very few people around. Our Vienna Passes covered it, so in we went.

I am not sure how I felt about this place. I can't say I overly enjoyed being here. War history is an aspect both Albert and I were interested in, and in Vienna the military dates back much further than it does in Australia. We were walking through galleries of medieval armour and swords. As you go up the stairs you enter this really beautiful hall with gorgeous columns and painted roof. It's spectacular.

I think a reason why we didn't enjoy it as much as we had thought was we had become accustomed to all tourist attractions being in both German and English, whereas this was only in German. This made it difficult to truly appreciate what we were seeing, as we weren't always sure what we were looking at or the significance of a piece of armour or weapon. Also, we were told by somebody that you needed to pay 2 euro to be allowed to take pictures (after we already had), whereas the sign posted only said no flash.

Regardless, if military is where your interest lies, it is worth seeing the history of an army that seemingly goes unnoticed these days, considering the Austrian empire had once been a very powerful and very large one. It's funny how we don't hear much about it. I'm beginning to think - based on what I've learnt of the imperial family - it's because they were actually a decent family who cared more about morals and people than themselves. They had abolished slavery and the death penalty by the 18th century.

After a look around we hopped back on the bus and went to the city centre again to visit the Albertina. It's an art gallery which displays the work of many European artists, including Monet and Picasso. I admit, Albert and I are probably not the best people to visit an art gallery, as we just don't possess the right appreciation one needs to view most art. We are the type of people who wonder how something made it into a gallery in the first place.

Truthfully, we hadn't realised it was a gallery, because it was a palace that belonged to the Habsburgs, which is what attracted us. What is nice about it, though, is you do get to walk through part of their living space. It displays portraits and other paintings of the family, which was probably the best part.

The Vienna Pass will get you into this for free too. Having the pass allows you to skip queues, but in some places (such as Schonbrunn Palace yesterday) still make you get an actual ticket anyway.

After lining up in the slow queue of the Albertina for about 10 minutes, we learnt that that is one that does NOT require a ticket. Oh well.

After leaving there, it was snowing quite heavily now. Our next stop was going to be the Jewish Museum. Although an awful time, the history of the Holocaust is an interest of mine, so I was interested in seeing this. We looked for a while and couldn't find it, but came across St Stephen's Cathedral. That was on our list anyway, so we went inside to keep warm. A sermon was going on whilst we were in there, but they still allow the public in to take pictures. The line was long to get into the other rooms, so we decided against going in. The actual church was lovely, however!

We had lunch in a popular pizza place. It was okay, but nothing spectacular. Afterwards, we searched a little more for the museum, but gave up and went back to the bus for our next stop.

The Natural History Museum is a stop everybody visiting Vienna must take! From hundreds of different mineral samples from all over to world, to skulls and bones of humans who lives hundreds and thousands of years ago, and then all the way to dinosaur bones, this is a very appealing and informative stop. In here, we spent a very long time, looking at everything we possibly could. An interesting fact that we learnt there was that in approximately 250 million years time, all the continents will combine to make another big continent called Pangea Ultima.

We also proved what we already knew - that Albert's nose really easy the coldest part of his face.

We hadn't intended to go to the Museum of Applied Arts until yesterday, when we noticed they had a Star Wars exhibition on. Normally our Vienna Pass would get us into this, but Star Wars was a special exhibition so we had to pay. But it's very much worth it!

It's more than a simple exhibition, but an interactive one. They only sell a certain number of tickets for every 15 minute interval and as you go in you are given a wristband and an earpiece. They have little ports throughout the whole exhibition to which to hold your wristband up to. Each station you create your own Star Wars character, based on the options that you choose. Essentially, by the end everybody has a different character they have created.

There are other parts to see, but the main part is designing your Star Wars identity (the exhibition is called Star Wars Identities), starting with choosing your species, and then moving on to choose personalities, your home world, your career, and ending with do you accept the call to the dark side or reject it?

It's honestly a really cool experience, and great for young kids all the way through to adults. If you are in Vienna from now until 16th of April, stop by the Museum of Applied Arts. You don't even have to be a huge Star Wars fan to enjoy it.

Our final stop for the day was Steffl. An 8 floor department store. Really, it's like any other department store, but Albert really wanted to check it out to get a pair of sunglasses. After that we stopped in McDonald's for dinner and then caught the train back to our hotel, where we now need to pack and prepare for our departure from Vienna tomorrow.

It has been a fun, enjoyable week here, and we have seen and enjoyed many parts of this city. We do look forward to moving on to other cities and towns, and seeing what they have to offer there!

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Photos

Armour
At the Military Museum

Glowing minerals
At the Natural History Museum

Chocolate Minerals
Don't you think they look like a box of chocolates?

Natural History Museum
Snow out the front

Snowball
The snow had to be at least half and inch thick in some places by now

Weaponry
Old Austrian military weapons