And...We Are Moving On...Again!
Posted by Ashley | | Posted On Thursday, May 16, 2013 at 1:13 PM
*allow me to take a moment to apologize for any past, current or future spelling or grammatical errors in these posts. Typing and editing from a phone is rather tedious and tricky. Also...on the Blogspot app I cannot arrange and resize any of the images, which is why they are all stuck boringly at the bottom. I will revamp stuff when I get home...not that it will matter to anyone else ;) *
It was our first and last full day in Vienna. We hit two great museums, the Kunst Historiache and Belvedere Museums. Both were former palaces and hence were really beautiful places to hold exhibits. The Kunst houses the Hapsburg Collection was as impressive as it was beautiful. My favorite part of the Kunst was that there were contemporary artists working inside the museum! The two we saw had been commissioned to make copies of classic pieces. It was so neat to be able to watch them work and to gain a small understanding of just how long it takes to painstakingly recreate all the minute details. I was observing one of the artists spend more than ten minutes on a single piece of straw on the ground. Both artists were clearly talented. I think it takes just as much skill to copy a masterpiece to perfection as it does to create an original work. They are different skills, sure, but there is just as much talent behind both.
On our lunch break, Nate and I went back to the Weiner Wurstl stand that we hit last night for some more meat. Yea, meat! Haha! I can imagine I would get tired of so much meat after a few days but...it was only day two and it still tasted great to me :) This time I got the Kasekrainer Hotdog, which is basically a huge cheese-filled polish dog shoved into a small loaf of bread that is filled with ketchup and mustard. It was awesome. Michael would be in heaven here!
After lunch we took a quick walk-through of St. Stephen's Cathedral (at least, I think it was a cathedral...it may have just been a church). The fake stained-glass windows filled the interior with a rainbow of colors that was gorgeous and other-worldly. As a side note, let me explain why the stained-glass is fake. When the Allies began bombing Vienna during WWII, the glass was all removed for safe-keeping. However, no one had thought to (or just didn't have time to) map out where all the pieces fit together. They still have not been able to reconstruct all the windows, so most of the windows are now filled with glass covered in colored cellophane to at least create a somewhat similar effect to what it would have been like back in the day.
Next we went to the Belvedere. We were not allowed to take photos (as with most museums) but the most major piece of note is Gustave Klimt's The Kiss. It really is quite stunning, even if a bit erotic. The gold-leaf just glitters like nobody's business. I loved it. I really did!
I spent the rest of the evening with a small group and walked around the Hapsburg Palace gardens. There is a good size hill on the property and from the top you can see a decent portion of Vienna. I kept trying to picture what it would be like to grow up in a palace (this is the place where Marie-Antoinette was raised), but it was too mind-boggling to imagine all that space and luxury belonging to one family. Crazy.
After that it was a chill night back at the hotel, catching up on class assignments and chatting with friends.
In the morning we are heading to Munich but are making a few stops along the way to see a bit more of Austria. So excited because so far I really like this country :)
It was our first and last full day in Vienna. We hit two great museums, the Kunst Historiache and Belvedere Museums. Both were former palaces and hence were really beautiful places to hold exhibits. The Kunst houses the Hapsburg Collection was as impressive as it was beautiful. My favorite part of the Kunst was that there were contemporary artists working inside the museum! The two we saw had been commissioned to make copies of classic pieces. It was so neat to be able to watch them work and to gain a small understanding of just how long it takes to painstakingly recreate all the minute details. I was observing one of the artists spend more than ten minutes on a single piece of straw on the ground. Both artists were clearly talented. I think it takes just as much skill to copy a masterpiece to perfection as it does to create an original work. They are different skills, sure, but there is just as much talent behind both.
On our lunch break, Nate and I went back to the Weiner Wurstl stand that we hit last night for some more meat. Yea, meat! Haha! I can imagine I would get tired of so much meat after a few days but...it was only day two and it still tasted great to me :) This time I got the Kasekrainer Hotdog, which is basically a huge cheese-filled polish dog shoved into a small loaf of bread that is filled with ketchup and mustard. It was awesome. Michael would be in heaven here!
After lunch we took a quick walk-through of St. Stephen's Cathedral (at least, I think it was a cathedral...it may have just been a church). The fake stained-glass windows filled the interior with a rainbow of colors that was gorgeous and other-worldly. As a side note, let me explain why the stained-glass is fake. When the Allies began bombing Vienna during WWII, the glass was all removed for safe-keeping. However, no one had thought to (or just didn't have time to) map out where all the pieces fit together. They still have not been able to reconstruct all the windows, so most of the windows are now filled with glass covered in colored cellophane to at least create a somewhat similar effect to what it would have been like back in the day.
Next we went to the Belvedere. We were not allowed to take photos (as with most museums) but the most major piece of note is Gustave Klimt's The Kiss. It really is quite stunning, even if a bit erotic. The gold-leaf just glitters like nobody's business. I loved it. I really did!
I spent the rest of the evening with a small group and walked around the Hapsburg Palace gardens. There is a good size hill on the property and from the top you can see a decent portion of Vienna. I kept trying to picture what it would be like to grow up in a palace (this is the place where Marie-Antoinette was raised), but it was too mind-boggling to imagine all that space and luxury belonging to one family. Crazy.
After that it was a chill night back at the hotel, catching up on class assignments and chatting with friends.
In the morning we are heading to Munich but are making a few stops along the way to see a bit more of Austria. So excited because so far I really like this country :)
Posts
Post a Comment