For the start of our spring break, we took a class trip to Vienna and Venice. Although the weather was less than ideal for the thought of "spring break" we spent much of our time within museums containing relics from long ago. We took a three hour bus ride to Vienna from Olomouc and arrived in the afternoon, after dropping off our belongings we headed off for some lunch before the National Treasury. Walking not far from the city center, we settled on an interesting looking self-service restaurant. After the waiter explained how the pricing works and us still not knowing what the heck was going on, we kind of just began ordering things. When going up to pay, the sum was an unusually high amount....we later found out, it was a vegan restaurant. Whoops. The budget did not include a $25 meal, however, we all laughed about it and moved onward.....let me also say, it was not worth $25 either. We then found an adorable chocolate shop where some of us had to try some.
After lunch, we met back up with the rest of the group to walk to the Treasury. Unbeknownst to us, apparently the Treasury was closed only on Tuesday.....and it was Tuesday. Okay plan B, we will walk a short distance to some museums where we could choose which one we would like to tour. Arriving at the museum, we then also discovered that they are also closed on Tuesday. Okay, now onto plan C. Free day today and then tomorrow we will do both! After a good laugh about our poor planning skills, we all made separate plans for the day. Of course, Lauren and I went shopping. Is anybody surprised? I wouldn't think so. We spent the rest of the day leisurely walking the shopping strip and after quite awhile, we found a place for dinner. We headed back to the hostel to rest up for the intensive day of museums to follow.
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Wednesday morning we woke up fairly early and tried again for the Imperial Treasury. We successfully made it inside and were quickly on our way for our self guided audio tour. The Treasury is much smaller than I anticipated it would be, it only had a single floor but contained many interesting items. One of my favorite pieces was the nail that was said to pierce Jesus's right hand. They are unsure how this piece came into the hands of the Austrian-Hungary empire, however, they had ties to the Holy Roman Empire which probably had something to do with it. Another one of my favorite pieces, which I failed to get a picture of, was the Austrian Crown Jewels which were beautiful! One of the more unusual things that was in the exhibit was a Narwhal tusk that was a gift, and thought to be a unicorn horn. This tusk was huge, and I also failed to get a picture of this one too, but that was probably the most interesting piece in the treasury.
After walking through the Imperial Treasury we again walked to the other museum where I chose to tour the Natural History museum. This one was pretty much just a ton of dead animals, spiders, snakes, birds, etc. However, one of my favorites here was this GIANT crab that was caught, I believe, off the coast of Japan.
Another one of my favorites, which I again failed to take a picture of, was an also GIANT Elephant Seal that was killed in 1901. I am not kidding when I say this thing was HUGE. I had no idea they could get that large. From there we went to the dinosaur section where they had an animated raptor, and concluded our tour. From here we had the rest of our day and some of the girls and I decided to grab some lunch, which consisted of traditional Viennese sausages. With Easter nearing the corner, many major cities have Easter markets filled with small trinkets and food, luckily we stumbled upon one. Recommended by the locals, we spent the majority of the day cafe hopping, since it was pouring rain, this seemed like the perfect thing to do! One that was suggested to us was Cafe Central, the oldest cafe in Vienna. This cafe was also very intriguing because it was a meeting point for some intellectuals such as Sigmund Freud and Peter Altenberg, a famous Viennese writer and poet. Cafe Central was also a meeting point for some not-so-cool people such as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Either way, it was interesting to think we were in the same place that they used to frequent. They had beautiful desserts on display and we stayed to have some coffee as we watched the rain pour outside. From here, we visited yet another cafe recommended to us called Cafe Sacher, where we heard they had iconic chocolate cake filled with jam. Once we got to this cafe the cake was slightly disappointing in my opinion, however, if it was as famous as they say, I was glad to try it!
By this time, we had spent basically the whole day inside cafes and it was nearing dark. We walked home and got ready for tomorrow as we will travel to Venice!
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Today we had a very long bus ride ahead of us, I believe it was about 6 hours. However, I was not complaining because we got some amazing views while going through the mountains!
We finally got to the island of Venice after a connection train from the mainland to the island. Immediately the island was very crowded and it was quite the hassle to drag luggage on the cobblestone for the entire length of the island, although we finally made it to our hostel! After getting settled, we went on a little walking tour to see the Venice Jewish Ghetto and also the main square where we would spend the morning tomorrow. After a long travel day, we were very excited to eat some dinner and go to bed. .
We got a very early start the next day because we wanted to beat the boats bringing all the other tourists. Our first tour was of St. Mark's Basilica which was breathtaking, it was decorated elaborately in gold and mosaic pictures. We then headed to the Doge's Palace, this is where the Doge of Venice lived and worked. The palace was decorated, of course, with more intricate paintings and embellished with gold and other fancy things. We were able to tour the armory and also the jail that was located in the basement. I am not sure why exactly there was a jail, but it was pretty neat to see! After the palace, we once again had some free time to use to our liking. A number of us payed to go to the top of the St. Marks Campanile, basically a really big tower. To our surprise, there was a lift to the top, this is a luxury in older buildings so we were pleasantly surprised. The views were incredible and the only thing that could have made this better was if it was nice outside. :)
We had researched other things to see in Venice and heard of this famous bookshop where all the books were in boats, so when the city flooded none of them would be ruined! So, we set off to find the iconic bookstore, and we found it! The place was very small but very popular and had a wide array of different books. There was no rhyme or reason to how the books were placed, it was pretty comparable to thrift shopping and actually it was slightly overwhelming. Although in the back of the store, there was a neat stack of old books that we were allowed to climb on and get some photos!
From here we weren't too far from another landmark, the Palazzo Contarini del Bovolo, basically a really pretty spiral staircase. This staircase, we came to discover, was actually used to accent the palace located behind it. They thought the palace wasn't very grand, therefore, they built the staircase to spice it up a little. In my opinion, they did a pretty good job!
Of course, we couldn't leave Venice without a classic gondola ride! We waved one down, and squeezed the maximum number of people on board to make the overpriced ride a little lighter on our wallets! ;)
We also found out we were sitting in the gondola completely wrong and all the locals were laughing at us....then got yelled at by the driver for trying to fix it. Oh well, it didn't tip over!
Thanks for reading!!