miércoles, 23 de julio de 2014

Viena, baby



Hi everyone! I am back after a week of exhaustive and unforgettable travelling.
My European tour consisted on a crazy roadtrip, including: Budapest-Vienna-Prague-Dresden-Karlovy Vary-Konopiste-Brno-Bratislava-Budapest, so as you can figure out I am less than a shadow of myself at the moment. Nevertheless, it was TOTALLY worthy, and I can´t see the moment of travelling abroad again!


 
 I thought you would like me to share some impressions about all these beautiful places with you. 
Let me start by introducing you the fairiest of them all.
This is the magnificent city of Vienna


I wish I could make you feel the same deep mark the city left on me since the very first moment.
I had read a bit about the place, but most of my readings were about politcs and history, so I had a vague idea about the arquitectonic specifics around beyond Schönbrunn and Hofburg palaces, which basically meant I had a huge shock when we first saw the Austrian Parlament.
 I mean, seriously, how many buildings do you know holding a giant Palas Atenea?
I think I stood in front of the sculpture for fifteen minutes repeating "no way" to myself.


The next station on my allucinatory dream was the Hofburg palace itself.
As a teenager, I was even more interested on history than nowadays, and the Habsburg dinasty was one of my big passions, so this was a mandatory visit for me.
It is funny how much you can expect about a place and how, far from being disappointed, the place can actually overtake all your hopes. ♥


I had the greatest of the times by admiring the private apartments of Elizabeth Wittelsbach (a.k.a. Sissi), as her melancholic figure seems to impregnate every object, from her collection of poet Heine´s letters, to her mourning wardrobe. I found truly interesting the exposition at the palace. The main subject was deconstructing the Hollywood myth to make an approach to the real woman: an unusual empress interested on Greek poetry and culture, German romanticism, Elizabethan poets, politics, and languages, as well as an independent but depressive person who never identified herself on the roles of queen, wife and mother.
 Apart from that, I went nuts by watching all the wonderful teaware and glassware sets, lovely ballgowns and fancy rooms (and even considered to hide beneath the curtains and stay in there forever, maybe pretending to be the palace ghost. But all my plans went frustrated when The Gentle One played the sane and rational role and convinced me I would survive too much without tea, cake and books around).
I´ll manage to plan my invasion next time, though!


After that we had a lovely walk around the Ringstraße area and had some traditional sausages and beer (yes, I like to behave like a total typical tourist sometimes, that´s part of the fun too).
Our Vienna visit finished early that evening, as we had to take a bus to Prague, but I am totally decided to go back to Austria soon. ♥

So tell me darlings, what was the last place you visited that really shocked you?


12 comentarios:

  1. This is breathtaking!!! I imagine how amazing it must have been to see these amazing sculptures up close! And... THAT GOWN!!! <3 I cannot help but wonder how difficult it must have been to move in that dress!

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    1. The dress was SO impressive. It is a perfect copy (the original one is saved inside the strong room at the National Costumes Museum) of the ballgown the empress wore on the engagement reception the night before her wedding. Although it can´t be apreciated on the picture, there are flowers, leaves and vines embroidered on the dress, altogether with some Arabic verses meaning "What a beautiful dream!".
      The petticoat and cage were really massive under the skirt, so as you observed it had to be quite difficult to walk (and DANCE!) by wearing it. Even so... ♥

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    2. Oh my! Who cares when you're wearing something that beautiful! I would eagerly ask them to constrain me in that anytime!!! :D

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    3. Hahaha... Yes, I agree! I think I wouldn´t even care not to walk at all on that dress :P

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  2. Vienna looks amazing and I too adore that statue of Athene, she is my favorite (though since she is a goddess i should probably hope I'm one of her favorite humans)! ;) I'm really interested to read about your experiences in Budapest, it's less than a month and I'm visiting that old city too.

    My latest trip was to Paris, France and my personal "whoah!"-moment was in Musee de l'Orangerie and the two grand rooms filled with waterlily paintings.

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    1. I think Budapest is becoming a quite popular holiday destination nowadays, and I think it is totally worth it. My own experiences in Budapest were a bit limited because of time factors, but the landscape impressed me so much, I al already planning my next holiday there.
      I have never been in Paris, nonetheless it is the first one on my future trip list now. I am writing down your recomendations about Musee de lÓrangerie. Thank you very much for the tip :)

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  3. Wow, it looks marvellous! So many statues! O I read the first novel about Sissi and saw the movie based on the book and loved it, as a child, very romantic. I'm looking forward to more photos from your trip :)

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    1. Really glad you also apreciate architecture and sculpture. I am kind of a geek when it comes to arts, although I never speak too much about it here, as I am a bit afraid of boring people with all my blah, blah :)

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  4. Wow, what a wonderful trip! Vienna looks stunning and grand.
    I love the museum pictures.

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    1. I just posted a bunch of them (took about 1000) and couldn´t really decided which ones deserved it. The city is so beautiful that you go literally overwhelmed by the Stendhal syndrome all the time.

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  5. What beautiful architecture, and what lovely photographs of it - especially the first two! I am not the biggest fan, usually, of Neo-Classical architecture, but this is just too beautiful to do anything other than instil much jealousy in me! I love all the mythological figures - apart from Athena, I've spotted Heracles/Hercules, Poseidon, and a few others. The sculpture of the person being kneed in the chest as he tries to pull the man that is kneeing him away from the scene of somebody being clubbed to death by Hercules on the other plinth is a wonderful combat freeze-frame in statuary.

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    1. What amazes me the most about Vienna is the fact that Austrian emperors (specially Marie Therese) would imitate the Grrek-Latin ideals about architecture: art and city design glorified the empire. You can actually feel how carefully they planned every bit about that.

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