We left Munich early Saturday morning on a train to Vienna.
On the way we traveled through Salzburg, where the Sound of Music was set. We
arrived in the early afternoon and checked into our hostel. After that we met
up with an old high school friend of Jeremiah’s, who is teaching in Vienna. We
met at a place called Gasometer. It’s a series of apartment buildings built
into a complex of four old natural gas storage facilities. Each is a large
brick cylinder that was retrofitted with a different design, each by a
different architect. I have wanted to see these in person for a while because I
am a huge fan of adaptive reuse design. Unfortunately the apartments are
secured and I couldn’t visit them or see their atrium's. I was also disappointed
by the fact that there was a rather crude shopping complex, tastelessly
inserted into the lower sections, connecting the four buildings. While, from
what I know of the project, the residential portion is quite successful and
inventive, the shopping portion was poorly done and is a stain on an otherwise
magnificent old structure. After visiting Gasometer, Jeremiah’s friend showed
us to a great Austrian restaurant, before parting ways with us. After a great
meal, we returned to the hostel to get ready for the next day.
The next day we met Jeremiah’s friend at a place in Vienna known
as Schonbrunn Palace. The complex is a large palace and a massive garden, with
a maze of branching paths and coves with statues and fountains. The gardens
even have the world’s oldest zoo. At the back of the gardens is a large hill
overlooking the entire site and well as a large part of Vienna. The view from
the top is spectacular. In the Gardens is a Palmenhaus (Palm House or
greenhouse), which is a great example of turn of the century architecture. It
was one of my favorite visits during the trip. The large building was filled
with a wide variety of plants supported by a beautiful Victorian structure. We
spent a great deal of time exploring the Palmenhaus and the rest of the
Gardens. After a while Jeremiah’s friend had to depart and left to find lunch.
After Lunch we went to visit the Vienna Natural History Museum. The museum was
filled with all manner of minerals animals and plants. It was a very classical
museum with great architecture that really made the space feel scholarly. The
architecture enhanced the wealth of knowledge. We stayed at the museum until
closing time, after which, we got dinner and went to bed.
On the third day we explored many of the older historic
buildings around the city; parliament, government buildings, libraries and
such. It was a rather disappointing day as many things in Vienna are closed on
Mondays. We wanted to see the National Library, a massive archive of historic
books, but it was closed to visitors that day. We also paid a visit to Beethoven’s
house, but that was closed as well. We were also a bit dejected by the fact
that we couldn’t see any musical performances (More so Jeremiah than myself, I
didn’t have any clothing suitable for the Vienna Philharmonic). It may come as
no surprise that concert tickets often sell out months in advance or cost a
significant amount of money. Pretty much everything we visited was either
closed or cost too much money to see. We did get to visit a fine butterfly
house in another old Victorian greenhouse, but that was only major success of
the day.
We awoke the next morning to catch our train back to Munich.
After spending a day walking around Munich again, essentially killing time
until our train back to Paris, we were tired and ready to be back in Lille. We
spent a great deal of time in Munich’s Englischer Garten, before going back to
the Hofbrauhaus for another great Bavarian dinner. We then boarded another
train to Paris overnight and got back to Lille Wednesday morning, exhausted but
happy for the things we had seen and done.
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