Tuesday, April 16, 2019
We got up around 7:30 am today. We washed clothes and ate breakfast. Meredith and Jesse arrived around 9:30 am to join us for a private guided tour of the St. Stephens Church and the Imperial Catacombs and Tombs. We had arranged with Justin, our guide, the other day for today’s tour.
Justin met us at 10 am as scheduled in front of the apartment. We walked with her from the apartment through our neighborhood. She pointed out things about the buildings we were not aware. One of the buildings nearby has an odd figure of part frog, part fish inserted into a huge nook with a picture below painted on the building of a man holding a mirror pointing to a frog with fishes in the pond. The frog has a fish tail.
The legend goes that this animal, part frog and part fish, would turn you into stone if you looked at it. This young man decided that it was a nuisance and something had to be done. He got a mirror and used it to find the frog/fish (she had a long German name for it but I did not write it down). When he found it, he let the frog/fish see its own reflection and it turned into stone. He took the stone structure and then they made a nook for it in the outside of the building.
She took us through many small little pathways between buildings, inside courtyards of buildings that now house private parking for the residents. One of the buildings was an old smaller palace where the son of Franz Joseph, the Crown Prince, killed his wife and then himself (they inbred like crazy, marrying their first cousins, aunts and uncles so they were often crazy themselves). The courtyard was weirdly very quiet with no city noise. She had us pay attention to the noise of the city before we passed through a large door way. There was a considerable quiet inside the car park/courtyard. She said during a busy summer with all the tourists, she will lead a group here and just let everyone reflect and enjoy the peace.
We passed several restaurants and bakeries that she recommended. One of them Jesse and Meredith had been to already, they used Trip Advisor and went. It is close by our apartment.
We walked to St. Stephens Church. She gave the history of it. It was built in the end of the 1300’s. Of course, it is huge. The city was under siege by the Ottoman Empire in the late 1400’s. They used cannon near the end of the day and put a huge hole in the roof of the church. The Emperor had the artisans and cloth makers design an exact match of the roof and had them work all through the night. They hung this huge tarp that from a distance looked like the roof. The Ottoman’s were put off saying if the Vienna people could repair a huge roof like that overnight, then they must process great powers. About that time, the Emperors reserve troops arrived from another area and the Ottomans withdrew. The Emperor and his troops revived and then defeated the Ottomans in battle a short time later.
We walked into the church and Justin gave the history of the interior. We took many pictures. Norte Dame’s Cathedral fire was two days ago and we wondered how this structure is protected and how it would do. We are so saddened by what happened in Paris.
Then we went down into the Catacombs. No pictures were allowed. Here the intestines of the Habsburg are kept in bronze containers. Their hearts are kept in another church where they were married and their bones are kept in the Imperial Crypt. I know it is unusual, but that is what they did. All the members of the royal family did this from 1200 onward. You did not have to be the Emperor, just a member of the royal family. Sandy did not go down into the Catacombs. She is very claustrophobic and she went to a coffee cafe.
We saw the containers. There were many. Only four members of the family have their entire body entombed here for various special reasons. One of the containers sprung a leak two years ago and it was replaced keeping the organs inside intact.
We then walked deeper into the underground area. During the Plague, people were dropped into deep holes in the ground instead of burying them. As they dug the catacombs and expanded them, they have rooms full of bones of all ages, years and years old. They had iron gated windows to look into these areas. I found it interesting, many were repulsed. In the period of 1763 to 1783 over 20,000 “common people” were buried under St. Stephens but the smell caused them to stop it. We paid our 8 Euros on the way out. The money is used to support upkeep of the church.
We met up with Sandy outside of the church. Justin pointed out some places to shop and get things. We then walked through the downtown center city to the Imperial Crypts. The bones and body of royalty are in the crypts. The sarcophagus of each royal member reflects the times when they died as far as the design and also their rank at time of death. The Emperors had crowns, their wives different crowns. Many children are in the crypt as life expectancy was not that good and some died within days or within the first year of birth.
The largest and most opulent sarcophagus is that of Empress Marie Theresa and her husband. It was during the height of the baroque period. It is gigantic. You could park two of our vans in it and have room for the Honda. Her nanny is buried in front of her tomb. It is the only non royal in the crypts.
Franz Joseph’s tomb is small but dignified. Several Habsburg that died in the last few decades are buried here as well. They are no longer royalty but they have the right to be buried here. They are a very wealthy family and involved in the country. Austria prohibited any nobility or royal titles after the war.
We said good bye to Justin. Then the four of us walked in the center city area. I got some more salmon open face egg sandwiches at Trzesniewksi’s but the others did not want any. I really like the sandwiches.
We stopped by Manner and got some really good Vienna Wafers. Sandy got the lemon which are fantastic, I got the apricot wafers which are good too and I also got salty caramel which were good but not as tasty as the others. Apricots are grown around Vienna and are featured with Easter goodies as well.
We stopped by the bakery Jesse and Meredith had found the other day and got baguette sandwiches and some really good Apricot and Chocolate croissants. Meredith got a special coffee. We walked to the apartment a short distance away and had a late lunch. We really enjoyed it.
They stayed a while and washed a load of clothes. We talked about our different trips and our experiences along the way. It was good to just talk again for a while and relax. They left late afternoon. Sandy and I debated about going out for dinner but we decided to stay in and eat some food we had. We watched the last few episodes of The Good Fight season two and went to bed around 10:30 pm. I did not do my blog tonight. We just wanted to chill a while.