20512 full day in Vienna (read: half day), they got us all checked out of the hostel, and we were quickly carted over to the museum quarter. this area was part of the Hapsburg's plans to beautify the city for generations. cause you know, when you have a huge empire, your capital better be pretty bad ass to match. anyways there are tons of museusm around there, the group of girls and i, though i dont think that title works anymore, as there are some other dudes in the crew now. so the group (myself included) went to the Hofburg palace, which is a huge complex of, you guessed it, museums.
we wandered through the actual palace bit, which included a wander through the kitchen/tableware/silverware purchased by the Hapsburgs to throw their fancy gatherings, pictured below >5% of the stuff.
after which there was a section about Sisi, the Empress of Austria, married to THE Franz Josef, (whose sarcophagus can be seen in a previous post). she was married to Franz when she was relatively young, though he loved her completely, and based on the audio tour she was never too keen on him, or the whole "being a member of the richest families in history" thing. when her son Rudolf killed himself, she became even more reclusive and depressed and whatnot, ultimately she was killed by an Italian anarchist while she was on vacation (those anarchists really had it in for the Hapsburgs).
Above: a crappy picture of a replica of the kinda jewelry she wasnt happy with wearing. after that section we wandered through the palace proper, it reminded my much of Versailles, or the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, i suppose thats cause they were (as mentioned earlier) constantly in pissing matches, hiring the same architects, and goldsmiths and topiary artists to make them something bigger and better than the last emperor, or king or whoever. this is the austere bed on which Franz Josef slept most nights (cause his wife was depressed and no longer could stand to sleep near him).
after that the girls and everyone wanted to go into the butterfly house. i woulda gone had it been a butterfly house installed by the Hapsburgs, the Austrian government made it, cause you know museums and kids and stuff. so i went to the Ephesus museum. first off, i thought it was awesome, it had old arms and armor and stuff. the tradition of the joust or tournament long outlasted the military relevance of knights, but there was still cool exhibits like this:
that last thing, is a big pillow that would lay across the horse's chest, to protect it, cause jousting horses are expensive, apparently its the only one in existence dating back to the 15th century or some such. there was also a section for old instruments which i zipped through as it didnt really interest me, but the end of the museum had the Ephesus stuff, which is really cool, cause i have been there, like to the real Ephesus in Turkey.
also, the building all this stuff was housed in was big and marble and imposing and cool. after this all of us met up again to wander through the Schönbrunn Palace, it was again, much like the Hofburg palace and all the other ones ive been through so ill spare you the rehash, however it did have a HUGE awesome garden in back. the word garden doesnt do it justice, this was a park, a large park off the back of a palace.
also pictured: some of the girls clearly disobeying the rules. after this we piled in the bus for the hours of ride back to Prague, on the "oldest road in the czech lands".
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