European Tour: Day Three

June 18:

After getting ready for the day, we met our group for breakfast in the hotel dining room. We then met at the bus for a day of touring. Our guide in Vienna was Sabina. Our first stop was at Schoenbrunn Palace which dates back to the middle ages. In 1569 it passed into the hands of the Habsburg monarchy/empire. It was their summer home and hunting lodge. We got to tour 20 of the 1440 rooms! It was very beautiful!

Our next stop was St. Stephen's Cathedral. It was originally completed in 1160 but what stands now is built upon those ruins and was built in the middle 1300's. It is continually under restoration. The style is romanesque gothic. This church is so massive and we were so close, it was difficult to get a good picture of the outside.

We then went to the Hofburg Palace. The oldest sections date to the 1300's. It was the Habsburg's winter home. It currently houses: six museums, a chapel, the president of Austria's offices, the national library, the famed Winter Riding School, a greenhouse, and a park. We visited the Imperial Treasury which is in the Hofburg Palace. There are over 1,000 items on display from the Holy Roman Empire and the Austrian Empire. It houses the imperial crown which dates back to 962. There is also a piece of jade that is almost 3,000 carats. There is also an agate bowl that was once thought to be the "holy grail".

Beside the Hofburg Palace is the Augustinian Church. It was originally built in the 14th century as the parish church of the imperial court of the Habsburgs. People of note married in this church: Austrian Empress Maria Theresa (of the Habsburgs), Napoleon Bonaparte, and Emporer Franz Joseph.

After that we toured the Imperial Crypt. It was near the Hofburg Palace. Since 1633 it has been the principal place of entombment for members of the Habsburg dynasty.

We did a driving tour of "the loop" in Vienna before heading back to the hotel to rest before dinner.

Here is the Parliament building completed in 1883 (Greek Revival architecture):

Here is The Rathaus built between 1872 and 1883 which serves as Vienna's town hall:

Here is Votive Church. It was was built in 1879 as a "monument of patriotism and of devotion of the people to the Imperial House" after an unsuccessful attack on Franz Joseph's brother: Here are some other cool buildings/churches we saw. I have, as of yet, been unable to identify them:

After resting a bit at the hotel, we met our group for dinner in the hotel dining room. At 7:30 p.m. we met in the hotel lobby to head out to a Mozart/Strauss concert. We took the underground train which was pretty cool. There is a lot of public transportation in Europe. We went to the Weiner Walzer for the concert. It was excellent!! It gave us a good sense of music that has come out of Vienna. They also had a couple come out and do the waltz and a lady and a gentlemen who came out and sang some opera as solos and a duet. During an intermission, we had drinks on the balconey. We returned to our hotel via the underground train and crashed around 11:30 p.m. It was a jam packed day!!