I'm catching up on posts, finally. Rather than writing this from Paris, I'm tucked away in a quiet (ish) corner of the Frankfurt train station, waiting for the next train to arrive. Thanks to the fact that the first train got in an hour early, and that I wasn't feeling wealthy enough to pay for a couchette, I'm quite short on sleep...but since I have to change trains twice and won't arrive in Paris until nearly noon, hopefully I'll be able to nap some more on the way. We'll see.
Vienna was really neat, although I could do without the 9 euro entrance fees for every single museum. And that's with the student discount! The regular entrance fee is actually higher. Being a bit of a museum person (I know, you probably hadn't noticed), I found that those ticket prices started to add up pretty quickly...and maybe I was just in the overpriced tourist section of the city, but it was nearly impossible to find anywhere to get food for less than 6 or 7 euros. A lot of places started closer to 9 or 10 euros.
On Wednesday, I set out intending to find the Spanish Riding School. I may have sort of gotten distracted by an interesting-looking museum instead. And yes, museums still look interesting after spending the better part of Tuesday inside them. I think that the title of the museum translates as something like "fine arts museum," but that's more of a guess than anything else. All I know is that they had a nice section of Greek and Roman antiquities...so I don't care that much what it was actually called. :)
After that, I actually did tear myself away and go find the Spanish Riding School. Also the palace where the Kaiser used to live. I got a ticket for the Morning Exercise with Music and a guided tour for Thursday - without a ticket basically all you can see is the gift shop. You can sort of crane your neck to see into the stables, because some of the stalls are built facing the central courtyard, but horses in stalls spend about 80% of their time with their butts to the door.
Since there wasn't much to see at the Riding School, I went and toured the Hofburg instead. At least, I think it's called the Hofburg - it seems to be called about six different things as well. But if I remember correctly, Hofburg was one of them. Anyway, they have what has to be one of the world's biggest collections of plates there, all set out on display. As part of that, they have one of the world's largest silver-gilt services - 4500 pieces. And despite it being so massive, it sometimes wasn't big enough, so apparently they would use saffron to color dishes from their silver service to match when they needed more settings.
There were two other exhibits there. One was the Imperial Apartments - the Emperor's and Empress's rooms - and the other was an occasionally rather cheesy and over-dramatized exhibit on the Empress Elizabeth. The rooms themselves were very impressive, though, and very sumptuous.
After that, I walked around looking for someplace to get cheap food. It's harder than I would have thought - most of the places near the tourist attractions are sit-down restaurants. Still, I eventually found a little bakery and got some kind of sandwich. I don't remember what it was called in German, and the lady behind the counter didn't speak enough English to describe it to me...it definitely had a pickle in it, and some kind of meat which might have been ham, and what looked like egg salad. It was a bit odd, but not all that bad.
On Thursday, I saw the Morning Exercise, then went over to the Neue Burg for a while because I had a couple of hours to kill before the tour of the stables. Yes, the Neue Burg is another museum. Part of it is called the Ephesus Museum, and holds artifacts that were excavated from Ephesus. Apparently Austrian archaeologists have been at work in Ephesus for several decades.
There was also a massive exhibit on antique instruments, although I found myself a bit hampered by my lack of understanding of German. It's frustrating sometimes to be looking at something and see "Ludwig van Beethoven" on the card, but not be able to figure out any of the other words...but I took some pictures of some of the ones that looked like they might be interesting, and I'll see what Google Translate can do for me later. I also wandered through part of the exhibit on arms and armor, which was also fairly interesting.
After that I went back to the Riding School for the guided tour. We weren't allowed to take any photos in the stables, which was frustrating. I can understand the restrictions during the performances, but I'm not sure why they need to be so restrictive in the stables. At one point, while the guide was talking, I "met" one of the stallions, who sort of introduced himself. There was no touching allowed, and the bars were too close-set for him to put his nose through anyway, but he hovered on the other side and watched me quite intently and listened when I talked to him. His name was Pluto Briosa II, and he was four years old and a beautiful dark rose gray...
That's about all there is to tell, really. It's a good thing I haven't had my fill of museums yet, since there's still the Louvre...
Vienna was really neat, although I could do without the 9 euro entrance fees for every single museum. And that's with the student discount! The regular entrance fee is actually higher. Being a bit of a museum person (I know, you probably hadn't noticed), I found that those ticket prices started to add up pretty quickly...and maybe I was just in the overpriced tourist section of the city, but it was nearly impossible to find anywhere to get food for less than 6 or 7 euros. A lot of places started closer to 9 or 10 euros.
On Wednesday, I set out intending to find the Spanish Riding School. I may have sort of gotten distracted by an interesting-looking museum instead. And yes, museums still look interesting after spending the better part of Tuesday inside them. I think that the title of the museum translates as something like "fine arts museum," but that's more of a guess than anything else. All I know is that they had a nice section of Greek and Roman antiquities...so I don't care that much what it was actually called. :)
After that, I actually did tear myself away and go find the Spanish Riding School. Also the palace where the Kaiser used to live. I got a ticket for the Morning Exercise with Music and a guided tour for Thursday - without a ticket basically all you can see is the gift shop. You can sort of crane your neck to see into the stables, because some of the stalls are built facing the central courtyard, but horses in stalls spend about 80% of their time with their butts to the door.
Since there wasn't much to see at the Riding School, I went and toured the Hofburg instead. At least, I think it's called the Hofburg - it seems to be called about six different things as well. But if I remember correctly, Hofburg was one of them. Anyway, they have what has to be one of the world's biggest collections of plates there, all set out on display. As part of that, they have one of the world's largest silver-gilt services - 4500 pieces. And despite it being so massive, it sometimes wasn't big enough, so apparently they would use saffron to color dishes from their silver service to match when they needed more settings.
There were two other exhibits there. One was the Imperial Apartments - the Emperor's and Empress's rooms - and the other was an occasionally rather cheesy and over-dramatized exhibit on the Empress Elizabeth. The rooms themselves were very impressive, though, and very sumptuous.
After that, I walked around looking for someplace to get cheap food. It's harder than I would have thought - most of the places near the tourist attractions are sit-down restaurants. Still, I eventually found a little bakery and got some kind of sandwich. I don't remember what it was called in German, and the lady behind the counter didn't speak enough English to describe it to me...it definitely had a pickle in it, and some kind of meat which might have been ham, and what looked like egg salad. It was a bit odd, but not all that bad.
On Thursday, I saw the Morning Exercise, then went over to the Neue Burg for a while because I had a couple of hours to kill before the tour of the stables. Yes, the Neue Burg is another museum. Part of it is called the Ephesus Museum, and holds artifacts that were excavated from Ephesus. Apparently Austrian archaeologists have been at work in Ephesus for several decades.
There was also a massive exhibit on antique instruments, although I found myself a bit hampered by my lack of understanding of German. It's frustrating sometimes to be looking at something and see "Ludwig van Beethoven" on the card, but not be able to figure out any of the other words...but I took some pictures of some of the ones that looked like they might be interesting, and I'll see what Google Translate can do for me later. I also wandered through part of the exhibit on arms and armor, which was also fairly interesting.
After that I went back to the Riding School for the guided tour. We weren't allowed to take any photos in the stables, which was frustrating. I can understand the restrictions during the performances, but I'm not sure why they need to be so restrictive in the stables. At one point, while the guide was talking, I "met" one of the stallions, who sort of introduced himself. There was no touching allowed, and the bars were too close-set for him to put his nose through anyway, but he hovered on the other side and watched me quite intently and listened when I talked to him. His name was Pluto Briosa II, and he was four years old and a beautiful dark rose gray...
That's about all there is to tell, really. It's a good thing I haven't had my fill of museums yet, since there's still the Louvre...
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