Vienna (Day Two)

We awoke Friday to sunshine! I beautiful day in Vienna. After eating a yummy and cheap breakfast at the Ruthensteiner, we headed for St. Stephen's Cathedral. After walking around the outside and taking lots of pictures, we headed inside. We took the elevator to the top of the North tower, which is not as tall as the South tower. We got some pictures, but it was very windy at the top!

After the North tower, it was time for a tour of the Catacombs - my favorite part of any super old cathedral. Here, we saw rooms full of bones and also "bone houses". During the middle ages, the catacombs had filled to the max and there was no more room for bodies in the burial grounds. The solution? Prisoners were forced to clean out the old burial rooms, taking the old bones and stacking them neatly into tightly packed rows which form the walls of the "bone houses". The old burial rooms were now opened up for a new round of occupants. It really would have sucked to be a prisoner in Vienna during that project!

The catacombs of St. Stephans lace around not only beneath the Cathedral itself but beneath the surface of the surrounding square. During the Black Plague, there was a huge pit in the square where the bodies of Plague victims were thrown - it was too dangerous to have funerals for them. Creepy. Another creepy thing in the crypt? For centuries, the bodies of the Hofburg family had been embalmed and buried in a special royal crypt somewhere else in Vienna. Their bodies are filled with wax and entombed there. In the crypt at St. Stephens, there is a room with many copper vessels in cases along the walls - these contain the intestines of the Hofburgs. Their hearts are stored at a separate location.

The last part of our visit to St. Stephens included climbing the 343 winding stone steps to the viewing room in the South Tower - here we had some beautiful views of the city (and got our exercise for the day).

One of our urgent missions on this trip to Vienna was to sample the sacher-torte from two places: Cafe Demel and Hotel Sacher. After we wrapped up at St. Stephens we went to find Cafe Demel. On our way, we walked by a building we had passed the day before. I had seen it on a postcard in the viewing area of the South tower only a few minutes before, so we decided to pop in. We were so glad we did - it ended up being one of the most amazing places we visited in Vienna- St. Peter's Church. It was surprising because it wasn't on our itinerary - Marissa had gotten recommendations from several different people/websites about things we should see, and nobody had mentioned St. Peter's. What a gorgeous Baroque Church. It was breathtaking.

The centuries-old bones of a martyr, all done up in ceremonial garb

We certainly hadn't forgotten our mission, however. After we gawked at the beauty of St. Peter's, we made our way to Cafe Demel and had our first taste of sacher-torte. It melts in your mouth and is best followed with espresso.

Next, we hopped on the subway again and headed out to Schönbrunn Palace. This palace was the summer home of the Habsburgs, and like all of the other things the Habsburgs had, it is anything but humble. The palace is huge, and filled with luxuries and ornate decorations. Each room we viewed had its own character and was planned to the tiniest detail. The complex was built in the 17th century, initially as a palatial hunting lodge. Many of the rooms were decorated by Maria Theresa, who ruled from 1740-1780 and was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dynasty. 

While pictures are not permitted inside the palace, we got plenty of shots outside. The sad part about coming to Vienna in the winter is that all of the gardens at the palaces are barren. I will have to visit again in the summer when they are all blooming; you can tell how magical it would be.

We hiked through the grounds of the Schönbrunn and back to the metro. From there we headed to the Staatsoper - the State Opera House. It was closed, so we decided to come back to it the next day. We spent the evening wandering around the area and riding the tram around the "Ring" - the loop around the city center. Later, we had more Austrian food at a little restaurant we found. It was good, but I was pretty much schnitzeled-out after that. It had been a long day.

Sunset in Wien