What is so special about Vienna?

Vienna- September 9th-12th 2011

We started our first week of travel in Vienna, Austria! I was a little hesitant about what we were going to see that was of any importance, however Vienna quickly became one of my favorite cities thus far. I don't know if it was the refreshing change to German culture after being in Italy for four weeks(not that I don't love Italy) that made me appreciate this city, or if it was recieving something that I did not expect from this city... I just know that I had a great time here and would love to come back someday!

view from top of Stephenplatz

We started our first day in Vienna fresh off the overnight train from Genoa.. which surprisingly was not that bad of a nights sleep(I just wish I could have had a shower!). We went straight to Stephansplatz which is the main square in Vienna to start our sightseeing. We started by climbing 300+ stairs to the top of the St. Stephans Cathedral to get a view of the city. I didnt think the spiral stairs would ever end, however once we got to the top the view was great! It was good to get an overview of the city before we visited different places. After that, we went to the American Bar, which is a famous restauarnt by architect Adolf Loos, and we saw many more of his creations. After lunch, we went to the Albertina, which was a great museum housing mainly modern and impressionist art- Monet, Gustav Klimnt(which is all over Vienna), among others. The entrance to the musuem was very neat as well... the steps each had a strip of a Monet painting to create a whole painting when looking horizontally at the staris. I was very impressed with this museum!

Albertina stairs

Throughout the next two days, we saw so many things I cannot remember which day we went to them! We went to the Kunst Haus Wein(which I learned translates to House of Art after I asked why there is another Kunst Haus (Graz) in Graz, Austria). This building was designed by artist Hundertwasser, who I had never heard of before this trip, but who I love. The building was very eccentric itself, and the art inside was of the same style. I ended up liking this museum so much I bought a poster of one of his works. We also saw another one of his creations which was an apartment building with the same eccentric style. We visited some buildings I studied in my architecture hisotry classes which I had forgotten were in Vienna(the Looshaus by Adolf Loos, and Postsparkasse by Otto Wagner). We also visited a few new interesting apartment complexes that have really transformed Vienna into a great place to live. One of them had an outdoor play area which of course we took advantage of... they also had outdoor work out equipment such as a two elliptical that ended up being more fun for us than a work out! Ive realized that studying these buildings in class, while maybe a little boring at the time, really makes visiting them more interesting. It was also very nice to have a guide (Guditta- who lives in Genoa and takes us on all of our travels.. who is awesome by the way) to take us around and show us things that have architectural interst.

Kunst Haus Wein

We visited three more museums in Vienna(yes.. I am museumed out for a while). The Succession, which was a small Gustav Klimnt museum with one mural, would have been to small to call interesting except for this mirror installation that was a lot of fun to take pictures on. There were hanging circular mirrors that reflected all over the room so you could get views of people from strange angles. We also went to the Belvedeere musuem, which had a very impressive collection and a great garden area. Finally we went to the Leopold Museum, which if you asked me I couldnt really tell you what it held. I dont know if I was over museums at this point, but this was definately my least favorite. I guess they didn't save the best for last this time!

at the Belvedeer

fun mirror installation

Normally endless museums would not make me like a city this much, however the combination of musuems and the culture of the place(people/street preformers everywhere) was great! Not to mention, our hotel (Hotel AM Konzerthaus) was very comfortable and had an AMAZING breakfast(coming from someone who is not a huge breakfast person.. not to mention good breakfasts seem to be rare in Europe). I would highly recomend this hotel to anyone visiting Vienna. I was sad to leave Vienna(it is a pretty special place), but very excited to be going to Venice! We just had another overnight trainride to get there...

street preformers