Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Today is a national holiday in Austria, it marks their independence from the Soviet reign in 1955 and to celebrate there was a big festival for the military. In the gardens outside the Imperial Palace the army had helicopters, a fighter jet, combat trucks, medical trucks and assorted weaponry on display. It was all completely free and you were close enough to touch and in some cases get into the vehicles. Inside the army tents you could handle all sorts of weaponry and other military equipment. It's great when unexpected things come onto your agenda, there was also a lot of festival food so we decided to try a few things like apple strudel and home made chips (crisps), yummy!
After the festivities we took the train into the centre of town to St Stephen's Cathedral again but this time we went in and took the guided tour of the Catacombs underneath the church. The Catacombs were used as a cemetery for the city and when the plague came through it became the only place to bury the thousands of victims. Unfortunately the smell of rotting corpses became so bad that it actually interrupted the services upstairs. Prisoners were sent down to scrub the bones clean and stack them like firewood against the walls of the chambers, it's all there for you to see now when you go through. The eerie sight of thousands of human bones stacked neatly with skulls facing out at periodic intervals.
From here we took the train to the Weinberg river to have a look and was a little disappointing after all of the other rivers that we have seen throughout our journey. We had a coffee and a bite to eat in a cafe and decided to head back to our hostel to pack our bags, book our next nights accommodation (in Prague) and to cook dinner in our tiny little kitchen.
Vienna is a beautiful city, but we would describe it as a museum city. So if that's what your looking for then you'll really enjoy your time here.
- comments