Apparently, Val and I took a long, hard look at this weekend and decided that we'd let the mindset of a tourist in Vienna for only 24 hours dictate our decisions. This turned out to be not a bad plan at all, but good lord, what a busy weekend!
Saturday was sightseeing day (pictures on facebook), as Val and I engaged in an exercise of the blind-leading-the-blind and took another American along with us for the ride. We started the day off at Naschmarkt, where there were stalls-upon-stalls of excellent fresh food, including meats, fruits, veggies, and all sorts of delightful prepared food. I wanted to eat it all but walked away with nothing. Fortunately, Naschmarkt is open Mon-Sat, and I intend on doing all of my grocery shopping there from now on.
Next, we headed to St. Stephen's Cathedral, which was really quite a sight to behold, inside and out. Like many European cathedrals, it has impressive spires, stained glass windows, and an appropriately somber and spiritual atmosphere within. We appreciated all of this, but who are we kidding: we were there for the catacombs. The tour of the catacombs was conducted in German and English, which was most fortunate because we learned many fascinating tidbits. For example, previous emperors' organs are kept in this cathedral (with other organs and the actual bodies kept in other cathedrals that were all competing to be the place that could say, "and the emperor is buried here!"). We got to see crypts where priests were buried, and we got to to see the renovated and old sections of the catacombs.
The old section was my favorite - appropriately spooky, low-lit, and very, very old. There were tons of skeletons piled up in various chambers. At one point, bodies were buried in the crypts because Vienna outlawed cemeteries in squares above ground. However, the smell was so bad, they had to store them in even deeper areas. Convicted felons were then charged with cleaning the bones and neatly stacking them, gathering like bones together (eg, all femurs stacked here, skulls stacked there). This resulted in what looked like a knobby looking wall, which was, in fact, a tightly packed stack of bones. There was one pit where the bodies of plague victims were stored. Apparently, people feared the plague so much, they just threw the bodies down this hole. We could see through the grating into a room just filled with bones.
After a fortifying hot chocolate, we were on our way to Belvedere Palace, which has extensive grounds, a beautiful palace, and lots of amazing artwork (including Gustav Klimt's "The Kiss"). This will be a nice place to walk around when it's not so cold and the gardens are blooming. Afterward, we had a hearty Austrian meal at a pub.
After that, it was off to Zentralfriedhof, Europe's second largest cemetery. There are over 2.5 million people buried there - more than the population of Vienna. We entered the cemetery with absolutely no plan at all for how we'd walk through it…and goodness gracious, this place was massive. It just kept stretching on and on as far the eye could see in every direction. There were very ornate graves that had intricate sculptures, more moderate ones that just had tombstones, and graves overgrown with weeds (most likely older Jewish ones, apparently). But the real stars of the cemetery were Beethoven's, Schubert's, Brahms', and Strauss' graves. We had no idea where these were, but an astonishing combination of dumb luck and attentiveness led to us stumbling upon them. Amazing!
That evening we wandered around in search of food. I may or may not have led us briefly astray into a hookah bar by accident...we were food-focused so we left immediately. Instead, we ended up at a fabulous tiny Italian restaurant that served the best pasta ever. After, we tried to go to Mozart's House, but were turned away with the excuse that it was "too late," despite my guide book saying it didn't close for another hour. Harrumph. Still, a full and wonderful day in all and a great opportunity to make a new friend.
Today, Val and I decided to go hiking (pictures on facebook), which, it turns out, is the healthiest thing we could have done today. Austrians love hiking here, and there are many trails that are both well-maintained and well-marked. What's also nice is that all of these trails are easily accessed by public transportation. So, we took the D tram out to the end of the line in Nussdorf, where the Vienna government's website told us the trail started. It was a little unclear as to where exactly we were supposed to go, but a man charging up the hill thrust his hand repeatedly in his direction while passing us…so we decided to follow him. Later, we were given a choice of two parallel paths, and he again waved us on to the correct path (while he took a different one). Thanks nice Austrian man!
After walking through the town, the trail took us into the vineyard-filled countryside. Val and I were kicking a rock along, and a runner ahead of us paused, looked back, and simulated kicking it back to us. We both laughed, and he then said a bunch of stuff in German while gesturing at his face. After asking if he spoke English, he said he'd just commented on how nice it was to see such happy faces when most people are so serious. Turns out he's a Russian who's lived in Vienna for 20 years, working as an anesthesiologist. A very friendly man!
Our hike took us through forests, another little town, and finally a really lovely view of Vienna near the Kahlenberg hotel. It started snowing at this point, and it got to be really cold as we were hiking down back to Nussdorf. The rest of the trail took us along some more vineyards and huerigers, along the Danube, and finally back toward the tram station. We got a little lost at the end there, but we were able to find our way back just fine. All in all, I'd say we hiked about 5 miles.
After being the point person for directing our travels yesterday and today, I'm feeling more comfortable with the public transit system and with the layout of Vienna as a whole. Not bad for a first week!
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