Vienna: Here We Come!

Departing the Czech Republic and crossing into Austria we passed through Linz which we had visited with Kathy & Dave last May on our river cruise. The good news for us, personally, is that our "Rick Steves" bus did not stop there. However we did go on to the Benedictine Abbey at Melk. We had seen this beautiful tourist attraction from the deck of our boat as we made our way toward Vienna last spring. While we knew we could not see everything on the river cruise we were disappointed that we had missed this spot. So for Bill & Deb it was the right confluence of itineraries. Additionally, our bus is going to make a stop at the Schonnburn Palace formal gardens. Readers of my blog from last May recall that our visit to the Hapsburg's Summer Palace and Gardens last May our umbrellas were blowing inside out due to the wind and rain. Conditions today - chilly but sunny - will make the Abbey visit and the stop at Schonnburn MUCH more pleasant.



The Abbey was another example of the lavish use of gold and marble to build an edifice in the Baroque style intended to provide worshipers with a glimpse of what heaven might be like. As was popular at that time, rulers and Church leaders were into relics. You may remember my remarks about the Cathedral in Cologne that housed the skulls of the Three Magi on their main altar and the Church in Frankfurt where the altar had a drop of Jesus' blood. Here they had a monstrance that had a tooth from one of the martyrs embedded in the monstrance. The Abbey church was overwhelming with gold and gold and more gold. I have included a couple of pictures along with two pictures of the side altar of John the Baptist which holds the actual skeleton of one of the early Christian martyrs that had been buried in the Rome catacombs and was gifted to the Abbey by Maria Theresa, the Hapsburg Empress. Just in time for Halloween.








The temperature is dropping. It is about 35F in the AM and the temp rises to about 52-55F. I didn't think I would need a coat. Yet I wish I had brought one.

Here are a few shots from the Summer Palace Gardens in Vienna. It looks a lot like the Palace in Versalles.