We set off to tour in and around Innere Stradt, Vienna's city center.  Vienna itself began in the Innere Stradt as a Roman camp.     But, in fact, the Romans weren't the first ones in the area.   A statue has been found near Vienna which dates back 25,000 years (yes, that's 18,000 years before the Egyptian dynasties!).   Unbelievable.  There's even another statue that's from 32,000 BC from another location in Austria - the earliest known statue in existence, which is also housed in a Vienna museum.    The Romans arrived in Austria in 15 BC, and founded the earliest settlements in Vienna in 8 AD.   Vienna flourished until the 5th century, when the Roman Empire collapsed.  

While traveling through Eastern Europe, we have been reading (maybe writing) about the Habsburgs, and their recent rule over countries we have visited, such as Czech Republic, Hungary, etc.   Because of our lack of knowledge dealing with this powerful and more importantly, recent empire, I couldn't restrain the history of Austria to just a few sentences as I usually do.  Please bear with the additional writing here :).

Skipping ahead to the late 13th century, the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf of Habsburg defeated the current ruler (Bohemian King Ottokar II).   The Habsburg Empire was one of the most powerful dynasties of time, holding power up until the end of WWI.   Their key to success - marriage.  Through marriage, the Empire gained vast areas such as  Spain (and colonies), Hungary, and Bohemia.   Maybe the answers to America's political woes is for Hillary to divorce Bill and marry someone in the middle east? :)  

In the 18th century, from the reform by ruler Maria Theresia and later her son, the empire saw a golden era, leading to Mozart, Beethoven, Shubert, and others to produce some of the worlds best compositions ever.  Warring with Napoleon in 1805 and 1809 cost Vienna greatly (Napoleon occupied Vienna in both of those years).  In 1867, the empire suffered losses to Prussia, and was forced to create the dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy.   In 1914, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand (nephew of the ruler), lead Austria-Hungary into declaring war on Serbia, and the beginning of WWI.   During WWI, the king died, and his successor abdicated the throne, and thus the Republic of Austria.  At the end of WWI, Austria suffered major losses, including the lands of Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. 

Civil war erupted in 1934, between the ruling Social Democrats and Christian Socialists.  In 1938, German troops marched into Vienna and Austria was then incorporated into the German Reich.   As Austria was then part of Germany, it was subject to the Nuremberg racial laws.   100,000 Jews escaped before borders were closed 1939.   65,000 Jews were killed in concentration camps, while 6,000 Austrian Jews lived through the war until Russian troops liberated the city in 1945.    Following the war, allied troops occupied the country, dividing the country into 4 (Americans, Russians, British, and French).    Due to slow negotiations between the superpowers, it wasn't until 1955 that Austria became a neutral country and allied armies departed.

As Vienna was neutral and on the edge of the cold war, it was a critical meeting point between the superpowers.   The International Atomic Energy Agency opened its doors in 1957, while the UN moved headquarters to Vienna in 1983.  Austria became part of the EU in 1995.  Most recently, Austria has attempted to come to grips with its contribution to WWII and Germany's atrocities.  Heads of state have admitted and accepted Austria's willingness to assist Germany, and in so doing, have tried to show the International community its desire to officially apologize and accept its history, yet move on.  Many Jewish museums have opened up in Vienna's Innere Stradt just in the last decade, as well as a holocaust monument.

We walked down the street our hotel was on, and stopped at a pizza shop for an early lunch.   From our reading, and looking around at restaurants, it seems that many Viennese eat a cuisine similar to German, as well as a blend of many different international foods.  Since we're not that big on the schnitzels, we think we'll be sampling more of the international cuisines while were here ;).    After lunch, we continued walking and walked by the new MuseumsQuartier (Museums Quarter).    If you love museums, then Vienna is the city to visit.   The Museum Quarters alone houses 6 museums and a number of cafes (over 650,000 sq ft)!  It's the world's eight largest cultural complex.   While it opened in 2001, the museums themselves are housed in the former imperial stables.  Not being huge museum fans, we felt overwhelmed here.  We moved on across the street to the museum of natural history and the museum of art history.  These two buildings are mirrors of each other, with an interesting garden in between.    After admiring the architecture of the buildings themselves, we decided we'd go into the museum of natural history - if not for anything else, a 25,000 year old statuette was on display (the 34,000 year old statuette is housed there, but for some reason only photos are displayed).   We entered, and paid the $12.5pp to enter.  We decided the German signs wouldn't be of much use here, so we also paid the $2.50pp for the audio guide.

After stowing away my bag in the cloakroom, we entered the grand hall.  It was a beautiful stair case, with a beautiful fresco on the ceiling.   While the building itself looked like a palace, it turns out it was built in the late 19th century, for the purpose of the museum itself.   After admiring the entrance, we ascended to the second floor first.  We read the map - it said picture gallery, and a bunch of painters names in specific sections.  We looked at each other, and then both realized that we were idiots.  We had entered the wrong museum!!!  We were in the art history museum, instead of the natural history museum.  The fact that the buildings were mirror images of each other made us feel a bit better :).     Funnier, was that the fresco on the ceiling should have given it away - it was of painters, and sculptors - including the most famous of those housed in the museum, including Raphael and Rembrandt.  Well, we decided maybe it was fate, and that we should take advantage of it and spend some time with the arts instead.  

The Kunsthistoriches Museum (Museum of Art History) contains the collections of the Habsburgs, and many important works of art created under their rule ended up in this museum.   We walked from room to room and admired the 16th century works of Spanish, French, Italian, German, Dutch, and other artists.  There were many Roman sculptures on display, as well as a large coin exhibit, with coins from 600ad, the beginning of the use of coins as money.   They also had 1/2 of a floor dedicated to Egyptian artifacts, with even a few mummies intermixed in the exhibits.  They brought back memories of our visit to the Egyptian Museum.   Surprisingly for us, we spent 2.5 hours in the museum.   Of course, you'd have to spend about 20 days of that to really see all the exhibits, but we enjoyed our time. 

We left the museum, and began walking into the southern part of the Hofburg, the imperial palace.   The Habsburgs seated themselves in this palace for over 6 centuries, of course, making additions along the way.   There's several different architectural styles, as each ruler added their own marks.   Much of the palace is now home to various museums , from graphic art museum, globe museum, Lippizaner horse museum, ethnology museum, ancient music instrument museum, Esperanto (the universal language) museum, and more.  We passed a few monuments, and a few museums, simply admiring the outside.  Before we could explore the whole palace, I couldn't help myself but stare at the neo gothic city hall (Rathaus).   We walked over to get a better glimpse.  Unfortunately, they were doing work on the 300 foot spire, as well as setting up for something big out front - both of which cut into our view.  Just down the street, we saw another gothic structure consuming the skyline, this time a church, with two huge spires.  As we walked closer, we found Votiv Church, built in 1879, was also disappointingly under construction.    We then walked back toward the Hofburg Palace.  Just north of the palace, in the Michaelerplatz (michael Square).  We viewed the ruins of a Roman structure in the center, and then headed into the white washed facaded 13th century Michael Church.  Besides the beautiful alter, we really enjoyed the church as it gave us a resting area, and relief from the heat outside. 

We left the church, and after passing back into the Hofburg, tried to enter the Esperanto museum (we were curious about this 19th century language developed to be the international language by pulling words from many different languages).  We had lost track of time, it was 5pm by now, and the museum had closed at 4pm.  We decided to walk to Vienna's most recognizable landmark, the gothic St. Stephen's cathedral.  Surprise, surprise, it was under construction as well.  Steven's square around the cathedral was packed with tourists and street performers.  In fact, the whole day we had seen lots of tourists (not so much a surprise I guess). 

We left the square to the other tourists, and began looking for dinner.   We went into a super market for water, and ended up purchasing dinner.  We picked up 2 chicken wraps, a mixed salad, wine, cheese, and water.  It was a long walk back to our hotel, and the water became a lot heavier than it looked, but we made it back :).   Our hotel room is 2 rooms, and even has a bar with bar stools, so we enjoyed our salad, wraps, wine and cheese in the room.  We wrote and read books to finish the night off.

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