Today we went on a Rick Steves walking tour of Vienna! This one was lead by Dad who enthusiastically read about each stop hoping for other tourists to join the tour with us. No such luck. Our first stop was the opera house where we saw Vienna's version of our Hollywood's Walk of Fame. It featured many famous musicians that I didn't recognize.
It also has a giant screen somewhere on the outside that shows movies, but it must not be in season. or we are just really bad at finding giant screens.
These are statues depicting the horrors of World War 2. From this viewpoint you can see the statue on the ground of a Jewish person cleaning graffiti off of the street, and yes, part of the statue on the right is a woman "birthing a future soldier." Art.
I took the picture on the left last year without any clue what this monument was, besides pretty. Apparently is was about the bubonic plague that struck Austria in the 1670's. Right above the brown banner is the King begging for the gods to have mercy on his people, below him is Lady Faith and an evil cupid throwing a naked old woman, representing plague, into "the abyss." Sorry the lower part of the monument isn't in the picture. I'll leave that part to your imagination.
This is the most expensive street in Vienna. We admired the windows of Cartier, Armani, Gucci, And Tiffany. Most of these stores had intimidating doormen standing in front, and I would have felt uncomfortable stepping anywhere near the stores while not wearing the most expensive clothes and jewelry I own. Even then, I probably wouldn't be dressed up enough to enter. At the end you can see the Hofburg Castle where the Habsburgs lived when they ruled pretty much everywhere.
This is right in front of the castle. These ruins were found in the 1990's. In America we dedicate entire parks to stuff like this. In Vienna it got a little less than a block. Yay historical preservation!
This is the front of the Hofburg Palace, guarded by four statues of Hercules and some of his more famous foes.
This is the roof to what I would consider the garage:
And they need three different clocks to know what time it is. The top tells the phase of the moon, the middle one is normal, and the bottom is a sundial. I think.
I have found myself using that phrase a lot here in Europe. Brody asked today what something in the kitchen was and my answer was "Sugar. I think." or when I asked Dad if that thing on the wall was a phone and he reply was "Yes. I think. But it only has four buttons."
This is yet another extension of the Hofburg palace. On the balcony is where Hitler declared that Vienna was destined to be part of the third Reich. Not Austria though. No one is to ever speak the word Austria.
This is across from that balcony. The entire wing was supposed to be mirrored on the other side, but World War I got in the way of the funding for that. So a statue of Archduke Charles who fought Napoleon was put there instead. I like it because it looks like the horse is afraid of the bubbles. This marked the end of our tour and on our walk home, we saw this huge ice skating rink out of no where and a skating course connected to it. We watched people skate around, and fall. at one point a One Direction song started playing and I think I actually saw Arden smile!
We also ran into the Votiv Church. No clue about any of its history, but it's pretty!
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