Our first adventure this morning was to figure how
to get to the historic area. Our apartment is a little further from the
center of town than the other apartments we have rented. We walked several
block to a bus stop and took a tram to the Hofburg (the Imperial Palace).
When we got off the bus we went in the opposite direction for a few blocks.We turned around and saw the Palace in front of us.
THE HOFBURG (THE
IMPERIAL PALACE)
Until 1918 the Hofburg was the home of the
Habsburgs, rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
The Hofburg area has been the documented seat of government since 1279 for
various empires and republics. The Hofburg has been expanded over the centuries
to include: various residences, the chapel,
museums, the Imperial Library, the treasury, the national theatre, the riding
school, the horse stables, and the Hofburg Congress Center. Numerous architects
have worked at the Hofburg as it expanded.From
1438 to 1583 and from 1612 to 1806, it was the seat of the kings and emperors of
the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, thereafter the seat of the Emperor
of Austria until 1918. Today it is the official seat of the Austrian Federal
President.
A large part of the Palace is open to visitors including the Imperial
Apartments, two imperial treasuries, six museums, the National Library, and the
famous Winter Riding School.
We had to walk all
the way around the palace to get to the Spanish Riding School which was first on
our list of “must sees” today. We wanted to see the famous practice of the
Lipizzaner horses at the Spanish Riding School which is located in the Palace.
We had to purchase tickets to see the practice. It was a beautiful building with
chandeliers, built in 1735. They paraded the horses around accompanied by
Strauss waltzes. They have been performing this riding demonstration for
over 300 years.We didn’t have
time to see the actual performance the next day. I am sure you have seen
the magnificent horses on TV.
We briefly visited other buildings in the palace
complex, including the AUGUSTINIAN CHURCH which was rather Baroque. The
church was built in the 14th century but the interior is late 18th
century.It has vertical
piers, ribbed vaulted ceiling and hanging chandeliers.
Inside
is a huge tomb that looks like a pyramid which is the Tomb of the Archduchess
Maria-Christina.We tried to get
into the Imperial Chapel but it was locked.It would take the whole day to visit all the open areas of the palace.
In one
of the courtyards, there was an “old soldiers” re-enactors brass band
which was playing and marching. We followed them into the Michaelerplatz.
We ate lunch at a beautiful café facing one of the fronts of the Palace, called
Cafe Griensteidl. We both had omelets - one
with ham and the other with cheese
and shared them.
St. Michael's (German:
Michaelerkirche)
is one of oldest churches in Vienna. It is dedicated to the Archangel Michael. A
statue of St. Michael slaying Lucifer is over the front door. This church, close
to the Michaeler wing of the Hofburg, formerly was the parish church of the
Imperial Court.
Over its long history, spanning more than eight centuries, this church has
incorporated many architectural styles. The church is late Romanesque, early Gothic and
dates back to 1220-1240. Over time, there have been many alterations, resulting
in its present day look, unchanged since 1792.
The interior of the church consists of a nave and two aisles. The side
chapels were added later. The vaulted ceiling is not very high. The high altar
was designed in 1782 by Jean-Baptiste d’ Avrange. It
is decorated with a huge alabaster
Rococo sculpture “Fall of the Angels” (1782) by the Italian sculptor Lorenzo
Mattielli. It represents a cloudburst of angels and cherubs, falling from the ceiling
towards the high altar. This was the last major Baroque work completed in Vienna.
The gilded pipe organ (1714) is the largest Baroque organ in Vienna. It was
once played by the 17-year old Joseph Haydn in 1749. Mozart’s Requiem was
performed for the first time in this church at a memorial service for the
composer on
10 December 1791.
One of the present day attractions of this church is the crypt.American soldiers made an amazing discovery in 1945 when they forced open
the crypt doors, which had been sealed for 150 years.Found lying undisturbed for centuries, the mummified remains of former
wealthy parishioners of the church. Even the clothes that they were
wearing had been preserved by the perfect temperature in the crypt. Tours
are offered daily, but we declined.
We walked down the street behind St. Michael’s and came on a wide street
known is the Graben. Its shape is due to the Romans, who dug the city’s
southwestern moat here. (Graben means moat or ditch).The centerpiece of this street is the very Baroque Plague Column (Pestaule).It was erected by Emperor Leopold I between 1687 and 1693 as thanks to
God for delivering the city from a deadly plague.There are a large number of cherubs attached to various parts of the
column.
As we neared the column, we saw set back about a half a block, St. Peter’s
Church.
St. Peter’s church is considered the best example of Baroque Architecture
in Vienna.It was constructed
between 1702 and 1708 by Lucas von Hildebrandt.Legend has it that the original church on this site was founded in 792 by
Charlemagne.The façade has angled
towers, graceful turrets which were inspired by the tents of the Turks.Inside is high Baroque. There is pink marble around the base of the
columns and cornices,a
“multitude” of angels of various sizes everywhere you look, and an ample amount of gold and silver on the pulpit, altar and around the walls.
There had been a restoration from 1998 to 2002.Everything looked bright and beautiful. There was wonderful organ
music playing so we stayed a while.
We walked back out to the Graben past the Plague
Column and entered Stephenplatz near Stephendom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral).We tried to go in but something was happening inside and not everyone was
allowed in. They had four tough looking guards keeping people out, but every
once in a while someone walked right in.
We had planned to attend the 10:00 Sunday service tomorrow, but it is
supposed to rain hard on Monday when we planned on going to Melk Abbey. We
had changed our plans and will take the train Melk Abby early in the morning and
come back to the Stephendom on Monday.I
invite you to read Day 18 for a description of this cathedral and our tour of
the inside.
We wandered around some of the side streets. I visited a wonderful three story bookstore looking for models but didn’t
find any.We next went in a
beautiful pastry shop -L Heiner on Wollzeile Street, several block from the Stephendom. Everything looked so
delicious that we had to indulge on several goodies. After our treat, we wander
around and visited several more churches - each one more baroque than the
other. First was the Jesuit church at the university (Universitatskirche)
.
The church is located off Backerstrasse on the
Dr.Ignaz-Seipel-Platz
which was named for the theology professor who was chancellor of Austria during
the 1920s.The church is adjacent to
the old University of Vienna buildings. The church was built around 1630. The
exterior is a two-floor, double-tower church which was influenced by the early
Baroque style but remodeled by Andrea Pozzo in 1703-1705. He added twin towers
and reworked the facade in an early Baroque style with narrow horizontal and
vertical sections. The design of the windows, narrow niches (with statues) and
the small central part of the façade deviate from the Baroque style of the
towers.
A baptism had just taken place and those attending
stood outside on the front steps.We
waited until we were certain that everyone
had left the church before going inside.
Despite its relatively austere exterior, the interior
is extremely Baroque with ersatz marble pillars, gilding and a number of
allegorical ceiling frescoes. The interior had a pink glow as many of the
columns are marbled pink.There are
several different style columns, from fluted Corinthian to twisted columns. The
columns were of different colors – grey, pink and green. The
semicircular vault ceiling was divided in four bays with paintings using
illusionary 3 D technique.
The most amazing thing about this church is the
“dome”. Executed by Andrea Pozzo in 1703, the remarkable trompe l’oeil
dome, painted on a flat part of the ceiling, is a real masterpiece. I
had to look at the dome from several angle to realize that it was not a real
dome that I was looking up into.Trompe-l'œilis an art technique involving extremely realistic imagery in order to
create the optical illusion that the
depicted object is three dimensions. We have seen this several places. One I
remember was the ceiling in the hall of the Vatican Museum
in Rome.
We walked a little further and came to the Dominican
Church which was build in 1630. Its
façade is modeled after Roman churches of the 16th century.
Fodor’s Guide describes the interior as an
“illustration of why the Baroque style came to be considered the height of bad
taste during the 19th century and still has many detractors today. “Sculpt
‘til you drop” seems to have been the motto here, and the viewer’s eye is
given no respite.”Every surface
of the church had decorations and sculpted designs.
On
our way back to the Stephenplaz, we passed the GREEK
ORTHODOX Church on
Fleischmarkt. The church is Baroque and was built in 1861 by the Vienna Greek
Community. The doors were locked but we have read that its “interior is a
glittering blaze of Byzantine design that has left no wall space untouched.”We wish we could have seen inside.
We made
found our way back to the Stephendom and still couldn’t get in. We
discovered where the metro was and took what we thought was the way home, even
changing to another line. When we got off where we thought our apartment
was, nothing looked familiar. We weren’t sure what to do. This is
the first time on any of our travels that we really felt lost. We asked several
people but we couldn’t understand each other. We finally figured out when we
saw the “D” tram which we had
taken on our way in pass by that we should take it when it passed again. So the
next tram that went by we took and ended up where we had gotten on in the
morning. Our metro map showed all of the underground trains and not the
trams above ground.
We found a bar across the street from where we got
off and had a couple of well deserved drinks. We walked back to our
apartment, and I went in search of sweets for breakfast. The desk clerk
said that the grocery where we shopped yesterday was closed and he sent me back
down to where we got on and off the tram. The was a nice grocery but there
were four checkout lines…one express, and I have never seen such long lines.
There must have 60 people in each line, but surprisingly it moved fast.
We had dinner reservations in a beautiful café
near the Volksopera where we went last night - Café Weimar.It is where the crowds from the Volksopera go after the performance.Tonight there were only 4 other people there.I had a creamed slice chicken breast on rice.It was good.My wife had cold
slice chicken breast on a curried salad.
Vienna is a little different from the other places
that we have been in that it seems more spread out. There were thousands
of people everywhere we went today, of course it was Saturday.
hapel,
museums, the Imperial Library, the treasury, the national theatre, the riding
school, the horse stables, and the Hofburg Congress Center. Numerous architects
have worked at the Hofburg as it expanded. From
1438 to 1583 and from 1612 to 1806, it was the seat of the kings and emperors of
the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, thereafter the seat of the Emperor
of Austria until 1918. Today it is the official seat of the Austrian Federal
President. 
l
the way around the palace to get to the Spanish Riding School which was first on
our list of “must sees” today. We wanted to see the famous practice of the
Lipizzaner horses at the Spanish Riding School which is located in the Palace.
We had to purchase tickets to see the practice. It was a beautiful building with
chandeliers, built in 1735. They paraded the horses around accompanied by
Strauss waltzes. They have been performing this riding demonstration for
over 300 years. We didn’t have
time to see the actual performance the next day. I am sure you have seen
the magnificent horses on TV.
one
with ham and the other with cheese
and shared them.
on
10 December 1791. 
ers, graceful turrets which were inspired by the tents of the Turks.
Inside is high Baroque. There is pink marble around the base of the
columns and cornices, a
“multitude” of angels of various sizes everywhere you look, and an ample amount of gold and silver on the pulpit, altar and around the walls.
There had been a restoration from 1998 to 2002.
Everything looked bright and beautiful. There was wonderful organ
music playing so we stayed a while.
Wollzeile Street, several block from the Stephendom. Everything looked so
delicious that we had to indulge on several goodies. After our treat, we wander
around and visited several more churches - each one more baroque than the
other. First was the Jesuit church at the university (Universitatskirche)
.
reworked the facade in an early Baroque style with narrow horizontal and
vertical sections. The design of the windows, narrow niches (with statues) and
the small central part of the façade deviate from the Baroque style of the
towers.
eryone
had left the church before going inside.
