Parthemores in Poland

We continued our high-octane, super-condensed travel itinerary with a day trip to Vienna.  Located only an hour away from Bratislava, Vienna is a completely different world. 

To avoid having to park, we took the train instead.  After our trip to Toruń, I wasn’t expecting much…but this train was great!  It was warm, comfortable, and built within recent memory. 

Vienna boasts two important qualities:  1) not destroyed in WWII and, 2) it didn’t languish under Communism for 50 years.  There is a beautiful gothic cathedral, dozens of elaborately decorated buildings, and enough museums to rival the Smithsonian.  There are also a lot of tourists, and therefore plenty of souvenir shacks. 

Vienna does have an interesting place in Polish history.  With Vienna facing certain destruction by the Ottoman Turks after a two month siege, a Polish Army, led by King Jan III Sobieski, arrived and crushed the Turkish Army at the Battle of Vienna in September 1683. This not only saved Vienna, but also a good portion of western Europe from Muslim conquest.  The Polish Hussars (probably the single most badass cavalry ever!) led what was reportedly the largest cavalry charge in history.  Unfortunately, Guinness wasn’t around to verify it.  

This is not a guy to mess around with...

Now back to the present day!

The day started out beautifully sunny and slightly warm.  On our way to the city center, we walked by the Belvedere, which was a really cool palace that had lots of neat sculptures and a beautiful garden.  This was just the beginning of all the architectural awesomeness we would see throughout the day.

After finding an English bookstore and buying a map, we went to the main square to see one of the most famous sights in Vienna, St. Stephen’s Church.  I thought it was cute that all the public transportation maps had a little cathedral icon on them, so there was no doubt how to get there.  The cathedral was undergoing significant remodeling, but they cleverly covered up the work with pictures of the building.  Brilliant!

Love that roof, too!

Throughout the city there all kinds of super-detailed classical statues, like Cerberus getting choke-slammed.

One of my favorite buildings was the town hall, and not just because there was a grzane wino stand in front of it.  By this time, the clouds had moved in and the temperature had dropped significantly.

(Throughout both Bratislava and Vienna, city workers were busily working to disassemble the Christmas markets and prepare for the New Year’s festivities.  Hence, all the scaffolding in the background, along with that huge Christmas tree.)

As I mentioned, there were tons of museums.  There’s even a whole section of the city called the Museumsquartier. Since the military history museum was closed, we instead toured/warmed up in the Leopold Museum, an art gallery that was featuring some of Edvard Munch’s prints.

The permanent displays were a little strange as well:

This was definitely one of the more bizarre art collections I’ve seen.

We had a wonderful time just walking around the city and looking at all the beautiful sights.  Here is Eric’s Hannibal impression, in front of the natural history museum:

Of course many areas still had all the Christmas lights up.  The size of the downtown shopping area was quite impressive – it went on for several blocks!

(I will post more photos in the album. Pretty much every building was gorgeous!)

In the late afternoon, we hopped on the train back to Bratislava.  We were a little tired after two full days of walking around two capital cities.  Fortunately, the next day’s destination was much more manageable! On to Cieszyn...