Vienna

I was in Vienna last weekend. I took the night train 11:30pm-9:00am, which was slightly convenient because it saved me a night in a hostel although it was actually a pretty slow train. Anyways, Vienna is possibly one of the most tourist oriented cities I've been to. I was really accessable and about 80% of the exciting things I had to see were located within a 3-5 block radius. Vienna revolves around the Hofburg Palace: The residence of the Hapsburgs. This picture shows one of the many wings that were added to the massive palace over the years.

Quick Hapsburg History Lesson: (some inaccuracies may exist, I'm an engineer, not a historian) The Hapsburgs were one of the houses that ruled in the Holy Roman Empire, which consisted of most of mainland Europe in the Middle ages. The details are incredibly complicated and there was a lot of inbreeding, but long story short, The Hapsburgs married royal families from all across Europe over a period of several hundred years and accumulated incredibly huge holdings of land and unimaginable riches in the process. Vienna's art, palaces, and jewels are the result of this growth. And it is beautiful. Shown above is the garden in the Summer Palace, the Schonburnn.

I visited the apartments (residence) of the Late Hapsburg emperors which display the lavish rooms and reflect their high-society lifestyles. Shown above is the Crown, Septor, and Cross of Rudolph II. which are only a small fraction of the wealth that is displayed in the Hapsburg Treasury museum, apparently one of the best on the continent.

Austria was once one of the strongest empires in the Europe, but that all ended at the start of WWI when Franz Ferdinand (a hapsburg emperor) was assassinated. The Grand Opera in Vienna, built by the emperor to entertain guests which I unfortunately could not attend. Opera and the Waltz are still "IN" in Austria, which is still holding on to its culture despite devastation in WWI and Literally not existing during WWII.
The eccentric youth of Vienna were holding a rather large but insignificant protest on Saturday by getting really drunk, taking off some of their clothes and blasting techno music in a parade around town. It was all really random and I later found out that they were protesting "Social Injustice." I just sat back and relaxed knowing that as and engineer I would never completely understand their point. I think it was just a big excuse to party and freak out tourists.

The Statue of Athena: One of about 50 Statues or fountains that I saw in Vienna. I think the nicest statue was Johann Strauss ( it was gold ). The Mozart was getting a lot of love from the tourists but I noticed that Sigmund Freud and Beethoven were getting no love. Probably cause the Beethoven was way out of the way, poor guy.

Vienna Rathaus, where they show movies every night on a huge screen. They've got bleachers and everything. I was pretty impressed. This is where I watched the Live Earth concert on Saturday night. Night Train home on Sunday night was pretty painful. It was late because it stopped in Salzburg for 3 hrs for some unknown reason. I wanted to get out and Frolic in the hills like the Von-Trapp children, but it was 4am and I was tired.