The hike was over and it was time to walk to the train station in Bad Goisern for our journey to Vienna. A quick change of trains and after two and a half hours we were back in the city center.
This time we stayed at the Hotel Josefshof, a very different experience than the Superbude, both in location and ambience. It’s an old building, and everything inside is modeled after Klimt designs, even down to a gold sink and a Klimt drawing on the glass door to the bathroom. It is in the Josephstadt area, just off the outer ring road.
After checking in, we did a gigantic walk along the ring roads. The buildings are massive, and I’ve never seen so many statues on top of buildings – a veritable army of gods, goddesses, emperors, and war heroes staring down at you. We explored multiple, high end shopping areas – very high design, plus Hermes, Luis Vuitton, etc etc. The Fersatt (sp?) passageway was particularly amazing. There were lots of museums I wish we’d had time to see, such as the Sisi Museum and the Imperial Apartments. By then it was so late it made no sense to return to the hotel; instead we found an Italian restaurant.
From there, we walked to the KarlsKirche, named for the emperor Charles. It’s a masterpiece of Counter Reformation architecture – all marble rust and cream interior, with Asian, Byzantine, Roman, and Greek references. Definitely an attempt to wow the masses. A pool outside reflected the glowing dome, giving the whole place a movie set like quality. The kids playing funky electric music provided a stark contrast to the concert we were going to in the church – Orchestra 1756, performing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons on original instruments. By the way, the Viennese somehow lost Vivaldi’s grave….which turned out to be a theme of much of the rest of the trip. He wasn’t the only one whose remains went missing.
The next day was for travel. After coffee and pastries, we took the underground to the main station, HBF, a train to the airport, and boarded our plane for the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. One more train into Paris itself – and our French adventure was about to begin.
FromSwamptoSummit 