day one in Wien (vienna)

After having to rush to the west train station (which was luckily right by the apartment that we were staying at) we made it to our train with about 3 minutes to spare and now we have a bit more time to play catch up on our blog which is nice. Well now we are up to December 27th, our first day in win, and we had a full day ahead of us. The plan was to start the day out by goig to Schonbrunn palace. After a hop skip and a ubahn ride over to we made it to the palace. IT WAS HUGE! It reminded me of walking up to the palace of versailles outside Paris but not as crazy. We headed up to the palace and decided to take a tour of the apartments. On the tour took a stroll through the palace with the help of our audio guides and learned a bit of history about the austrian empire. Walking through the office of Franz Joseph and how he might have had the most crazy work ethic i have heard of. He felt that put in 14 hour work days starting at 5 am. He believed that it was his duty to work hard to benefit the austrian empire. Strangely he also did not seem to take advantages of all that he had at his finger tips keeping his office, smoking room and bedroom all very simple. Oh and by the way he had an absolutely amazing mustache and chops and I will be working hard to someday achieve this look even though matt keeps telling me I need to shave my face and get a haircut.

Being the big cheese of Austria has some percs for sure. Franz Joseph had his right hand man who had a room adjacent to his and this guy was there to bring him food, snacks and anything he might need or want at the drop of a dime. Now Franz Joseph met and decided to marry Elizabeth (Sisi) when she was 15 and they wed shortly after. He was adored her but royal live was not what she wanted and ultimately became very depressed and kept to herself (more on Sisi to come in the post for day two in Wien because we went through the Sisi Museum). Sisi’s rooms, yes rooms, were just through the smoking room and were a bit more lavish. Connected to Sisi’s room was the first full functioning toilet in the palace. It was in a 3ft by 3ft room and was not much more than a toilet and walls but im sure this toilet made her life a tad bit easier and nicer.

After the apartments we made our way to the great hall. This hall was nuts the ceiling must have been about 30-40 ft high and was decorated with what seemed to be hand carved wooden plants painted in gold. While we were there the hall was under restoration and parts of the walls were covered but from what we could see it was nice. I guess they would hold concerts and thanks to our audio guide we learned that Mozart played a concert for Sisi and Joseph when he was only six years old! I guess when he was done he ran and jumped on Sisi’s lap and gave her a great big hug. I guess they knew Mozart would be the Cats Pajamas even at age six! Also in this grand hall were huge chandeliers with about 40-50 candles which were now replaced by electric candles and electricity was installed in the place by none other than Thomas Edison. These were not just normal electric candles because the flame would flicker and move around on top of the candlestick to give it a real flame look.

After the the tour of the inside of the palace we made our way through a section of snow and ice on the ground to make our way to the back of the palace where the gardens were. If we thought this place was huge before the land it is on is even more nuts. Due to it being winter a lot of the plants and flowers either died or had been removed from the garden but it was still pretty beautiful. We walked over to where this huge fountain was and decided it would be a good idea to try to ice skate on it without ice skates. It was fun and I think shane captured and action shot of my slide about 3 seconds before I almost ate it. Then when we were getting off the ice we saw a since that said please keep off the ice of the fountain or something along those lines in german...OOPS. Oh well, it was fun. The palace has the worlds oldest zoo on its grounds and we were able to walk by it but the though of spending some of our time in Wien at a zoo didnt seem like the best of ideas and to see the animals out and about in the snow seemed a bit sad so we just walked along the side and were able to see a few animals like an american buffalo and some other kind of huge buffalo or yack or something with big ol’ horns.

After walking through the gardens for an hour or so we made our way back to the Ubahn to see a bit more of the city. We saw that vienna had some cool big Cathedrals so we decided to go check out one of them. I dont remember the name but it had 2 towers that you could go up in and get a view of the city for a couple of Euro. Walking into the Cathedral was crazy cause as soon as you walked in it was a total time warp. Everything was old and super cool looking inside. One thing that struck me right away was the 6 foot floating Jesus on the cross hanging suspended about 15 feet in the air directly in the middle of the church. After snapping a few photographs inside we made our way up to the south tower. We decided to go up the south tower because although it was not as high we were able to go outside on it. We had to take a tiny little elevator that with a austrian man who was playing his hand held radio and whistling along with the tunes that I could not make a word of and the lift opened up to a shady metal structure and stairs that took us up to the stable stone tower. from up there we could see half of Vienna. We could only see half because the other half was blocked by the pointy roof of the Cathedral. The view was really beautiful and you could really see how big Vienna really is from up there. It was cold and the wind was blowing pretty good so we didnt spend too much time up there but we did snap a few pictures and then made our way back down the tiny lift to the cathedral floor below.

After checking out one of Wien’s Cathedrals we decided to head over to Hofberg Palace which was another palace occupied by Joseph and Sisi. Due to the time that it took to explore their other palace we decided to pick one section of this and come back the next day to really explore it. We made our way to the treasury which was full of all kinds of crazy. Making our way through the treasury we were greeted by a crown that had to have been worth a million dollars in just gold and gems alone, not counting any historical value. Some of the stuff that they had was just insane. For example we saw the worlds biggest emerald and it was seriously the size of a softball! Walking through all the gems gowns treasures and shiny things we made our way over to the relics section of the treasury. In the relic section they had either pieces of bone, flesh, hair of a saint or someone really important encased in a structure, usually beautifully decorated. Some of the craziest claims they had relics in there were the following in no particular order:

1. A part of the cross that Jesus was crucified on. It was maybe about 2 inches by 5 inches in size and was made into a cross.
The Christ spear. This spear was said to have punctured Jesus in the side while he was being crucified. I remember seeing a discovery documentary on this...well, i am 99% sure it was the same spear and they did all kinds of crazy tests and wanted to do more but were not permitted to remove the gold that was covering half of it.
One of the nails that was nailed through jesus to hold him to the crucifix. The nail was about 6 inches long and looked to be very old and who knows maybe it was the actual nail but I am not sure who determined this or how they know.
A few relics that said that they had a piece of Christ himself.

Now I am not sure if these relics are accurate or how they know or who found them but im sure if this topic interest you more information is available on their website or online in general.

After the treasury we decided this fun filled day had to come to a close so we took a walk through the hofburg to see some of its buildings such as the library. It was beautiful and especially illuminated by the lights shining up on it. On our way home we stopped by a market to pick up some stuff to make dinner, another nice part of staying in an apartment. We made some food watched the first half of Home Alone on shane’s macbook and then called it a night. All in all a good day and a beautiful city.

Now Im going to pass the baton over to matt to do a write up on day two in Wein...should be an exciting one because we saw some funky stuff at the modern art museum...we will see how detailed he decides to get ...readers be warned :)