Category: 2016 European Road Trip

I shared a photo on Instagram and Facebook recently, which featured one of the shops here in town making a face. Not really making a face, looking like a face. (Have you ever seen the Faces in Places collection on Flickr?)

A friend of left a comment saying that she thinks I look at the world differently. Maybe that’s true to a degree. But in the case of faces on things, they just kinda jump out at me. I can’t help it. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it, know what I mean?

I do like roadside oddities, some of which can be weird. And I do look for those. But sometimes, weirdness just happens around me. As was the case on that first day in Vienna. When the four of us saw the weirdest thing I think I have ever seen while traveling. Really. And I have seen some pretty unusual stuff.

Actually, I think it was Annelies who spotted it first. We’d been heading north toward the Prater park, but she and I wanted to see the Danube. Just because. We descended some steps beside a waterway, which we thought was the Danube, but was actually just the Danube Canal. Same water, just not nearly as picturesque as we’d hoped the Danube would be.

We walked for a bit then spotted an outdoor bar/restaurant that we couldn’t pass up.

While sitting there, enjoying some cool beverages, we noticed this boat on the canal.

That’s just one part of the very long Bathing Ship Vienna (Badeschiff Wien), which has apparently been on the canal since 2006. It has a restaurant, bar, and bowling alley as well as the swimming pool and soccer cage (above the pool) you can see in the picture. Soon, you’ll be able to enjoy some urban camping on the deck.

Unusual, but not terribly weird, right?

It’s what was going on inside the pool that had us all scratching our heads. And laughing.

You can click on the picture for a larger version. In case you cannot clearly see the three people in the pool wearing rubber unicorn masks on their heads.

Three people, dressed as unicorns, engaged in synchronized swimming practice, in a pool, on a boat, docked on a canal in Vienna.

It really was the weirdest thing any of us had ever seen

I have no idea WHY they were doing what they were doing. But I’m pretty sure there is a story behind it.

They were clearly practicing for something.

Even funnier, they appeared to have done it before.

It was quite entertaining trying to figure out what they were doing and why.

We never did figure it out. I could have asked them, I know. But sometimes it’s more fun leaving things to the imagination.

Day one was pretty eventful. I hope Day Two isn’t too much of a letdown for y’all.

There are actually quite a few significant churches in Vienna, but we didn’t have the time or the desire to see all of them. Really, you can only see so many amazing churches in a relatively short span of days before they all start blurring together.

St. Stephen’s Cathedral is the one I wanted to see most because it’s a landmark of Vienna, and has been for about eight centuries. One of the most-recognized features is its mosaic roof. It has a pretty cool Gothic exterior, too.

St. Stephen’s was actually our first major target of the day. We figured we’d see St. Stephen’s, wander around a bit, and then maybe see the Votive Church, another pretty famous one. Other than that, we figured we’d just walk and gawk. You know, see the city instead of just its most-famous sights.

There were hundreds of statues like that scattered about the church’s exterior. Impressive, right? Wait until you see the inside.

The lighting made photography a bit difficult. These pictures won’t win any quality awards, but they will give you an idea as to the church interior’s incredible level of detail.

Seriously, I could roam around in there for hours. And then spend another couple of hours looking at all of the statues on the outside of the church. But we had more things/places to see. If you’d like the read the very interesting history of this particular church, which was built to thank God for saving Emperor Franz Joseph’s life in 1853, CLICK HERE.

Annelies is a map person like me. Between the two of us, we usually do a pretty good job finding our way around strange cities. But, try as we might, we could not figure out how to get from St. Stephen’s to the Votive Church. We found St. Stephen’s on the map, figured out where we were standing in relation to the massive building, but could NOT locate any of the streets labeled on the map. We even asked the waiter who had served us lunch before entering the church. He was confused, too.

Finally, we gave up and just ambled around for hours. That’s when I took many of the pictures shared in yesterday’s post. We walked around the city’s business and shopping district for hours, stopping occasionally to rest, and maybe buy some refreshments.

We were all pretty exhausted and ready to make our way to the next area of the city we wanted to see, getting dinner on the way, when we rounded a corner and saw this…

The actual St. Stephen’s Cathedral.

THAT is the famous exterior we’d been looking for.

Earlier, we’d mistakenly found our way to the Votive Church. Which is why we were having such a hard time finding our way from St. Stephen’s to the Votive Church. We were already at the Votive Church.

Oh well. Just another funny travel story we’ll be re-telling for years.

Unfortunately, we were all so tired, we did little more than step inside for a quick minute or two. It was very crowded.

I’m glad we stumbled upon St. Stephen’s. I really would have felt stupid if we’d missed it entirely. Even if we did like the one we thought was St. Stephen’s — the Votive Church — better.

In my next post, I’ll share the weirdest thing we saw that day. In all honesty, it’s probably the weirdest thing I have ever seen while traveling. Really. And I have seen some pretty odd stuff in my time.

Vienna is a fairly big city, spread out over a large area. There was lots of interesting stuff to see. In addition to the fun/quirky stuff I shared in my previous post, we saw two really pretty churches (or cathedrals), and a bunch of other architectural interestingness, too.

I’ll save the church pics for the next post. Here are some of the other cool buildings we saw in Vienna on day one.

The first couple of pictures were taken in the neighborhood near our apartment. The closer we got to the center of the city, the more ornate the buildings became.

That building isn’t very old (in the big scheme of things), but it has history. The hotel’s website says…

The Neuer Markt, also called Mehlmarkt (translated: Flour market) is one of the oldest places in Vienna. It’s first mentioned under the name of “Novum Forum” in 1234. Next to it is one of the most popular shopping miles in town, the Kärntner Straße. In its former times, the Neuer Markt was used as a grain market. Until the 19th century grain, flour and legumes have been sold here. In 1739 the beautiful Donnerbrunnen became the centre of the place and attracts many people now. The buildings around this place have the character of prestigious middle-class houses.

It really is a pretty city. The pictures don’t do it justice. The churches or cathedrals we entered were amazing, and we only entered two. There’s so much more we didn’t see, but we thoroughly enjoyed the things we did see.  Wait ’til you see the churches. 

Those pictures are in the next post.

The other day I realized I’d never finished sharing pics from our European road trip. A trip that was six months ago! At this rate, if I don’t catch up, my next vacation will overlap that one, and then things will REALLY get confusing.

I have lots of images to share. Vienna was a very interesting place. I’ll try to keep the explanations brief.

We didn’t ride the tourist bus, we made our way around via foot and public transit.

There’s a very large public park in Vienna called the Prater. That’s where the Wurstelprater — the world’s oldest amusement park — is located. It’s kinda cool that you can ride public transport to a full-blown amusement park right at the city’s edge, no?

We did walk a lot that day. And it was hot.

We were all exhausted after a very long day, so we decided to have a lite dinner at the apartment consisting of various meats, cheeses, and other goodies that we had on hand. There was a supermarket on the opposite end of the same block that housed our apartment building. Very convenient (I planned it that way).

There are a lot more pics from that day. I couldn’t put them all into this one post. We saw lots of interesting architecture and two amazing churches or cathedrals that day, too. Those pics will be included in the next two posts.

If I remember correctly, Annelies chose Kutna Hora because of its location and its attractions. But it could just be the attractions. There are a couple of important cathedrals, one of which isn’t actually a cathedral, and a very unique bone church.

The first church we visited was the Church of Saint Barbara. It sure looks like a cathedral, but it’s actually just a church that’s built like a cathedral. I say “just” a church, but in an area known for its gothic cathedrals, this particular church is actually a standout.

It’s sure big for a church, right?

The ornamentation inside these large religious structures always amazes me. The structures themselves are incredible, but then there are all the murals and statues, stained glass and carved wood, and painted ceilings. Very, very high ceilings at that.

Yep, it really was wood. This was the first large church/cathedral we’d seen with pieces like that made of wood instead of stone.

If you look closely, you can tell it’s wood.

It always takes longer than expected for us to see these huge religious buildings.

I have no idea what these things are called, the little statues sticking out that serve as outlets for water downspouts, but I was delighted to see the next one…

I’d seen some that sorta looked like a frog before, but none that were so clearly a frog.

There’s a nice view of the town from just outside of the church.

From there, we headed to the outskirts of Kutna Hora to see a VERY different kind of church, The Ossuary (bone church) at Sedlec. There IS a cathedral near the ossuary, but we had a long day on the road ahead of us, so we skipped it.

According to one CR tourism website…

Kutná Hora is known for the curious “Bone Church” or Ossuary (in Czech, Kostnice). It is located in the suburb of Sedlec. The Ossuary is in the undergroud chapel of the Church of All Saints. It contains the bones of about 40,000 people who died of the plague in 1318 and during the Hussite wars in the 15th century. They were originaly buried at the church cemetery. When the cemetery was closed at the end of the 15th century, the exhumed bones were transferred to the chapel and compiled into pyramids. In 1870, František Rint of Česká Skalice arranged the bones and skulls into creative decorations that include bells, the Schwarzenberg coat-of-arms, and a chandelier.

It was cool to see, but creepy. I mean, those are real bones of people.

It was an interesting place for sure!

On a lighter note…

Here’s a site with some history of the place for those of you who want the story.

And for those who want to see more pics, the Flickr slideshow is embedded below.