It all started April 8th, when I flew from Santiago, Chile to Vienna, Austria. There were two stops in the USA (where I gorged on fat-laden foods at the airport) and one stop in Barcelona, where I "picked up" Luis before flying into Vienna.
The Whitaker Conference for all the fellows/scholars was scheduled the following week in Budapest, Hungary, and I decided to stop in Vienna and Bratislava along the way just to see some sights. Vienna was fantastic. We stayed in a hotel near the shopping area and Naschmarkt (great fleamarket street with stalls selling HUGE sausages and cartoon-like cheeses...during the evenings the shops host music venues, and we saw a blues show in one of the restaurants). The palaces were amazing (Belvedere, Schönbrunn, and Hofburg), the opera was fantastic (we dressed up and saw L'elisir d'amore at the Staatsoper), and we even got to see the Wien Philharmoniker perform Beethoven's 5th and 6th symphonies (7 euros for standing room tickets!). It was a bit rainy during our 3 days there, but it was great nevertheless. I even got to see Camille, a girl from Paris I worked with 3 years ago who was in Vienna for Erasmus, a European-wide exchange program. Just walking around the city was amazing - the churches were very impressive and the shopping is fantastic (but alas...out of my budget).
The cheese sold at Naschmarkt was over 1 foot in length and width!!
Schönbrunn Palace. Not my favorite palace in Vienna, but still very impressive. It used to be the summer palace for the royal Hapsburg family.
THIS was my favorite palace in Vienna. The Belvedere! I liked it a lot more because it has a much more impressive (and varied) art collection. This photo is the back of Upper Belvedere, taken from the walkway leading to Lower Belvedere. The Upper one houses most of the impressive art collections, including an extensive Klimt collection (The Kiss is HUGE!).
Part of the Hofburg Palace. I think it was the Natural History Museum. The whole palace was very impressive, and covered a HUGE area...it included the Fine Arts Museum, the National Library, the Albertina, State Apartments, Spanish Riding School, and more museums. It was pretty daunting to walk through, and we definitely got lost. It was like a mini-city. I wish I had more time to explore, as we only got to see a small portion of the palace.
Before we knew it, our three days in Vienna were over. I was a bit sad to leave such a great city -- definitely worth it to stay a week or more! We took a bus to Bratislava, Slovakia to spend a half-day there before heading by train to Budapest, Hungary. Bratislava was a bit odd. The bad weather (rain and clouds) contributed to the grey atmosphere and the concrete buildings. The city center was a contrast of new and old, and you can definitely see the remnants of the communist occupation. I thought it was going to be dirt-cheap, but it was not. After spending about 3 or 4 hours in Bratislava, we were glad to be on the train to Budapest.
Next up...Budapest and the Whitaker Conference!
No comments:
Post a Comment