Musical concert in Vienna

To end the day, we hunted down some concert ticket sellers in Stephansplatz and purchased tickets for a classic Viennese concert:  Mozart, Strauss, and some others.  It was held in a salon with about 100 seats (very intimate), with a 5 piece string ensemble and a pianist, as well as two opera singers.  The opera singers performed a few pieces from the Magic Flute and the Marriage of Figuero.  We really enjoyed it!

 The room was classically decorated with red velvet wallpaper and chandeliers and gilded wooden walls, but there were also some modern art pieces on display (shaded of grey and black).  While they didn't clash with the room, the style just didn't fit in our view. 

The chandeliers were lovely.

We wandered through the lit up city afterwards.

Schonbrunn Palace

Our last tour was of Schonbrunn Palace.  We got the Grand tour of 40 rooms and really enjoyed the audio guide narrative that tells a lot about the family history of the Hapsburgs.  The palace has a lot of period furniture in it that made is seem more alive than the Palacio in Madrid (which was also beautiful, but empty of furnishing for the most part).

I was glad I made a reservation for the opening tour time.  The sheer size of the ticket selling area was daunting to consider if it were fully queued!

The gardens in Schonbrunn were much better kept and full of flowers compared to the gardens at the Palacio in Madrid.  This kind of surprised me since Spain exports so many flowers.  I had really expected a lot more window boxes and other gardens in Madrid that simply weren't in evidence. 

Part of the group decided to climb up the hill to the Gloriette for an amazing view.  It was much quieter and more peaceful there than in the palace. 

You can't appreciate the sheer size of the Gloriette until you are up close. Its huge.

Traditional Viennese dinner

We asked our hostel for a recommendation for traditional Austrian food and were directed up the street.  The place was not too busy and the host was friendly and full of advice about what to order (he recommended the most expensive item on the menu).  We had our choice of schnitzel, goulash, dumplings, and other delicious options.  Many chose schnitzel, and decided they want to go back again tomorrow to try something else.  

Josie wore her "I [heart] Barcelona" shirt today and at one point someone behind her started whispering "I love Madrid, I love Madrid".  It took her a minute to figure why this person was even saying this to her at all.  Lol. 

It was kind of funny when I went to pay for the group, the waiter put my swipe card (no chip) in the chip reader.  I said "no chip".  He looked puzzled and didn't know what to do.  I said "you need to swipe" and pointed to the side of the machine.  He turned it the wrong way and tried it.  I told him to turn it around.  He finally got it.  However, he explained to me several times that the bill did not include "service".  I think he expected me to put in a tip once he had authorization for the card, but the swipe protocol didn't allow that option.  He seemed irritated, but didn't say anything to me.  I pulled out some cash instead and left an appropriate tip and he seemed satisfied.

For our final night we also sought out a traditional restaurant.  This one was so traditional the menu was only in German.  The waitress offered to tell us what was on it, but I said we'd try to work it out ourselves first.  We actually did a pretty good job.  The challenge with German is they tend to string multiple words together, so you just have to focus in and take them apart to figure out the difference pieces that you can recognize.  We ended up with dumplings (cheese, spinich and mushroom), and wrapped chicken with ratatouille.  (The waitress confirmed that our interepretations were correct before we placed the order.

We had a little bit of trouble finding a table on this last night.  The small places in our neighborhood all had tables reserved.  Fortunately we were looking for dinner on the early side, so they let us eat and run (like Americans do, haha) and still had the table ready for the guest with the reservation later.

Ice Cream - a Must!

After a full day of traipsing around a seasonally warm Vienna (I'm guessing 78 - 80), we decided it was time for an ice cream break.  Not just a cone of gelatto...we're talking ice cream sundaes on Schwedenplatz!

We arrived just as it was beginning to sprinkle, but within 2 minutes the skies openned up and poured down rain for about 10 minutes.  It was a good time to be inside stuffing our faces. 

Ice cream with tradition since 1886.  They totally upheld the tradition with us today.

"Truffle" with chocolate ice cream and sour cherries in the middle covered with chocolate shavings and topped with whip cream.  Chocolate ice cream with hot fudge and raspberry sauce!

Vienna Opera House

Even though this is my 4th visit to Vienna, I have not visited the Opera House before (this was evident when I accidentally took the group to the Volkstheatre instead of the Statoper building).  We got back to the right place, waited for the ticket sales to open with a hoard of other people, and eventually got in for a tour.

It was fun to compare to the tour we had at La Scala Opera House in Milan several years ago.  The Vienna opera house is larger, but similar in many ways.  Both have small display screens in front of each seat where the language of the opera can be translated into other languages for the audience member.  Both are decorated in Royal red and gold.  Both have a royal box.

It has five tiers of seating, including two different 'standing only' areas for 3 and 4 euros.  The sales for these seats opens just 18 minutes before the show begins.

Imperial box

I was particularly impressed with the scale of the stage and backstage area.  The guide explained that they put on 50 different shows during a 10 months season, often with 5 different shows in one week.  The crew would set up one stage for a morning rehearsal, then replace it with another stage for a different night time performance.  There were over 100 separate pulley systems for backdrops and curtains, etc. 

When looking at the stage, the blue pole visible on the right is the same depth back from the front of the stage as the back of the audience seating.  As you can see, the backstage goes much further back than that.  The entire hole under the stage is over 20 ft deep and can hold a whole other stage set to be changed out.  This is also true to the side of the stage.

While we were sitting there listening to the guide (about 15 mins), the stage crew completely installed the springy stage top for a ballet that evening.  Like a giant jigsaw puzzle.

The guide also took us through the various intermission rooms, some of which were quite fancy and others less so.  The fancier ones dates to before WWII.  During WWII, damage had been done to part of the building and the restoration was not as glamourous (or as expensive) as before.

Exploring Vienna

We were up and ready to explore the center city this morning.  We took the metro in, but I wasn't certain of my orientation when we came up from the station. Rather than leading the group in the wrong direction for a block until I could find a street sign, which I've had to do several times, I decided to just ask someone on the street.  I approached a young man who confirmed that I was headed the right direction and kindly wished us a good visit to the city.  As we walked away, several of the members of the group said "he was so Nice!"  It's amazing how impactful first impressions can be.  It was a nice way to start our visit.

We began with a stop at Stephansdom and a private tour of the crypts.  After that we grabbed a picnic lunch in the store and continued on to St Peters church.  There was a service in progress, so we only stepped into the back and listened for a few minutes and looked at the beautiful interior.

(taken later in the evening when we came back by)

 Next we saw the Hofsburg Palace.  I've never toured, but would be curious what options there are to see the various parts of the inside. 

We continued walking through the city to see the Augustinerkirche although the heart chamber was not open to visit.  It is also the church where Royal weddings took place.  Maria Theresa was married there and there is a huge tapestry in the Schonbrunn Palace depicting the event.  Napoleon Bonaparte married into the Hapsburg family and was also married there.

We continued on to the Museum quarter for a picnic lunch.  Such beautiful architecture!  We did not stop for museum visits today though.

Giant statue of Maria Theresa between two of the museums.

We then headed to the Karlskirche and went up on the elevator to the top of the dome.  You get a city view from one of the clear glass dome windows, and a close up view of the paintings on the dome itself.  I was non-plused however with the giant elevator scaffolding that was set up in the midst of the sanctuary.   Other places where we've got up have had elevators in towers, or have allowed visitors to use stairs to access the higher elevations in the church.

Stephansdom - St. Stephens cathedral

We were up and ready to explore the center city this morning.  We took the metro in, but I wasn't certain of my orientation when we came up from the station. Rather than leading the group in the wrong direction for a block until I could find a street sign, which I've had to do several times, I decided to just ask someone on the street.  I approached a young man who confirmed that I was headed the right direction and kindly wished us a good visit to the city.  As we walked away, several of the members of the group said "he was so Nice!"  It's amazing how impactful first impressions can be.  It was a nice way to start our visit.

We began with a stop at Stephansdom and a private tour of the crypts.  I've seen the crypts twice already, but this guide was especially good and shared some details hadn't heard before.  The guide was also the king of dry, understated humor.  It was hard to tell if he was joking or not, but eventually we picked up that he was not as straight faced as he first seemed.  

The dead bodies of the royal family are partially entombed at Stephensdom, meaning that their organs are removed, placed in sealed copper jars in alcohol and saved in the crypt.  The hearts are preserved in the Augustinerkirche which is the parish church for the royal family, and the mummified bodies are in the Capuchinerkirche.  Apparently this was for political reasons.  The archbishop as Stephansdom got the organs, the parish church the hearts, and the church with economic connections (unclear on this distinction) got the bodies.  If the copper jars get a leak, they put them in larger containers (which had happened to several of them that were in large jars).

We went up in the tower of Stephansdom to see the amazing roof (it was burned off at the end of WWII when fires from looting spread to the roof).  We also saw two workers going out on the roof in climbing harnesses.  We watched for a long time for them to get hooked up and out the windows, didn't stay long enough to see what work they were actually going to do while up on the roof