Vienna

The next stop on the trip was Vienna. I only stayed one night which was definitely not enough. Our first stop was the gardens of a castle. It was so beautiful! We were lucky because it just stopped raining before we arrived and it was perfect weather. While we were leaving the gardens it started to rain again. I love all the stories about the castle and gardens. It's interesting to learn about the people that lived in the castles, why it was built, what kind of impacts they had on the region of that time. The castle was built for an emperor and it was supposed to be a kind of utopia for him. It had large gardens, a place to hunt, some fake roman ruins, and his idea of villagers. They lived in nice places, had a nice market, they weren't dirty or poor, and they greeted him whenever he passed by. It was later inherited by a woman and for her birthday present someone built a castle like building at the end of the gardens for her to look out at. That is what I call a birthday present! A man later inherited the castle but he was "a gay" and had no children so it was given to a woman who was very unattractive, and even though she was extremely wealthy she never married and had no children so it was then given or sold to someone else. The tour guide went on to say that "the gay rulers or emperors" of that time had more beautiful castles then the straight ones. They were more lavish and well decorated. This is what I mean by the tour guides being politically incorrect even though it might be historically true. Everyone started giggling when he said "a gay."

Later we went to a restaurant and had some wiener schnitzel and then we went on a tour around Vienna. We went to the Jewish quarter and saw a Holocaust memorial. The aristocrat during WWII that lived in the castle with the garden was upset with the Nazi invasion and all the laws against the Jews. Around the time the Nazis started to enforce public places to put up signs saying "Jews are not allowed" the aristocrat put up a sign saying "Jews are cordially invited to my garden." He and his family members were later arrested. The man who did that may have lived in the castle with the garden I visited in Vienna the next day...either way it made me happy to hear a person of that status standing up and speaking against the Nazis even though it had severe consequences.

I have some more stories to tell about Vienna. I still need to talk about my dinner with Ini and Pezi and the art gallery I went to but I'll talk about it in my next post. Here are some pictures of the gardens and parts of Vienna.

Best birthday present ever. (Summer House or something.)

Some friends and I standing at the top of the gardens with the castle in the background.

Summer house in the background with the gardens.

Fake Roman ruins.

Some more of the gardens.

The Holocaust memorial. People were originally upset with the memorial when it was made because it is a concrete eyesore. The artist intended for it to be that way. Your not supposed to think it's pretty, it should disturb you. The outside is full of concrete books that can't be opened and the binding can not be read. It's supposed to symbolize all the lives that were lost and what their impact could have been in the world. It also symbolizes all the important Jewish books that were destroyed.

The inside of a famous Cathedral in Vienna.