Royal Palace in Vienna

Entrance to the Royal Palace in Vienna

While in Vienna we stopped at the Royal Palace between concerts. It was a break between seeing the Vienna Boys Choir in the morning and seeing a symphony concert at the Musikverin in the evening.

Having been to several palaces in other European cities I didn't expect much. Maybe some rooms, decorated to the period with a few signs to read and a basic walking tour. What I actually got was one of the better palace experiences I've had thus far.

What made it great was the way they had used an audio guide to take you through the story of the palace. The audio guide looks like a cell phone and lets you punch in numbers and designated way-points and you can listen to a 1 to 3 minute tale about what you are looking at.

What was different about this audio guide is that instead of trying to cram in 500 years of history through the tour they focused on the last two occupants Franz Joseph and Queen Elisabeth. Seeing the palace through their eyes and their daily life made a big difference in holding my attention. I really enjoyed the tour.

One additional comment for travelers. Trying brining a set of headphones if you are going to visit a place that has audio guides. Many times the audio guides have a headphone jack. Your arm can get quite tired holding the guide next to your ear for more than an hour and a half. This was the first time I happened to have a set of headphones on me while taking the tour and it made a huge difference.

More Tulips, from Vienna

Tulips at a Market in Vienna

I posted a week ago about tulips. I had another chance to take more tulip pictures while in Vienna. This time we were walking through a street market. There were plenty of vendors although there only seemed to be about 6 types of things being sold

1. Dried Fruits
2. Kebabs
3. Flowers
4. Cheese
5. Fruits & Veggies
6. Anti-pasta (olives etc. soaking in oil)
   

If you weren't selling one of these items there was really no place for you at the market.

Architecture of Vienna - Art Nouveau

Jugenstil (similar to Art Nouveau) Building in Vienna

I really enjoy the lines in Art Nouveau architecture. There is something very pleasing about the smooth arching lines, and simplistic geometry. During our travels we've seen some good examples of the style, particularly in Prague.

It turns out that Vienna also had some great examples of the Jugenstil style (close relative to art nouveau ) architectural style. In particular there was a man named Otto Wagner that did a lot of the work in Vienna.


Wagner did one particularly famous building in Karlsplatz, the city train station (Stadtbahn Station). The picture on the left is an architectural detail shot of some of the decorative metal work on the Stadtbahn Station building that caught my eye.

I think what I also like about the style is the subdued colors. Although they aren't really that bright, it seems that the artists and architects always seem to incorporate a wide range of colors in their works that somehow seem to work well together.

Something About Maria

In 1964 Hollywood produces traveled to Salzburg Austria to film a movie musical based losely on the Trapp family singers that escaped Nazi occupied Austria only to venture to the US and eventually open a ski lodge in Vermont.

Sound crazy? No its just the basis for The Sound Of Music which debuted in theaters in 1965. I have to personally thank Rick Steves, and Bobs Special Tours (Sound of Music Tour) for enlightening me on all things Sound of music.

Our aptly named tour guide, Rosa-Maria, was a wonderful host for our 4 hour Austrian tour. She was a wealth of Trivial Pursuit quality information about the movie, its characters, film locations, and Austria in general. While the tour itself focused on locations used in the filming of the movie there were plenty of other city sites, and cultural events also on display.

From the movie we saw the the fountain from the 'I Have Confidence' song. We visited the road where the childern where playing in the trees while the captain drove his car by. We saw the steps in the Mirabelle Garden featured in 'Do Re Mi'. We saw the church were the Wedding was held. We visted the mansion that was used as the back of the captians house were the children fell in the water (see the picture). And finally, and most importantly we saw the Gazebo. If you don't know what I am talking about then you either aren't a fan or you aren't forceable made to watch the four hour epic on a yearly basis by your wife.

This was a tour designed for Americans to the fullest extent. I was quite amuzed by the entire thing actually. It was quite fun and even though I am not a real musical fan I would recommend the tour to anyone. It was a great way to see quite a bit of the Austrian countryside in a short time.