Austria - Day #4

Day #4

We started the day at Loretto, a smal town with a famous church. It was whit monday, so there were celebrations at the church, so I personally didn't enter the building. I only saw it from the outside. We saw people marching to the church with a brass band and all, it was spectacular :)

After this, we went to Kismarton. The hungarian noble Esterhazy family owned the for a few hundred years since the XVI. century. They had a great castle here, and had famous visitors. Kings, queens, famous writers, poets, composers of that age. They even housed Joseph Haydn for a while. He lived for 4 years among the walls of the castle, then moved to a nearby house. He wrote music for the owners of the castle, and he was the bandmaster of their orchestra. We visited his house too (6th picture), but we didn't enter. We took a walk in the city instead :) The park you can see on the pictures was part of the castle obviously, the lake had cute ducks ^^

After Kismarton, we went to Ruszt, another small city. It had some hungarian relations, but I don't remember well. It was part of Hungary a century ago, that's for sure. It's famous from its wine :)

The final stop was the fort of Léka. What makes it unique, that it was left in its original state. It was build in the middle ages, in the style they used back then. And luckily, none of its later owners upgraded it to renaissance, baroque or whatever style, they kept it in its original state. So it's a real Knight's castle to this day. There were pretty neat things in it, we saw a medieval kitchen, and various rooms for different purposes. A great hall and a torture chamber as well. And for the first time in my life, I saw an iron maiden ^^ It looked just like the one in Shaman King. Both the Great hall, the torture chamber, and a church was accessed from the same square, and the church and great hall is still in use to this day. You can rent them for weddings for example, for a good price :)

Austria - Day #3

Day #3

We left Wien in the morning, and traveled to a small town called Krems. It's an old town, it exists for a thousand years. It's oldtown was pretty nice with renaissance and middle ages like houses, and a gothic church. It was lovely ^^ Our Ship to Melk left from here as well :)

The trip to Melk was pretty nice, the ship was beautiful ^^ We could eat and drink, and the waitresses wore some kind of renaissance maid-like uniforms. Sadly, I have no picture of them, but they looked gorgeous! The trip lasted 3 hours, and I drank two glasses of beer and ate a spaghetti during it. The weather wasn't too nice, it was foggy as you can see on the pictures.

When we arrived, we visited the monastery of Melk. Big surprise, the guide I hired there was hungarian, so she could tell us all about the buildings and items in their museum in our native language. The monastery itself was amazing. It was richly ornamented, and had 60 rooms for visitors. They even had kings and queens visiting before. Their library was huge too, and they had pretty expensive and rare items, like gold plated crosses with all kinds of jewels, rich bishop outfits and baroque style golden relic keepers. They claim to have a piece of the wooden cross Christ was crucified on.
They even have a big church in baroque style. It was so rich too. They accomplished the motto of the baroque era perfectly with its interior, to 'Bring down Heaven to Earth'

At the end of the day, we went to a city (I don't remember its name) where Franz Ferdinand from the royal Habsburg family, and his wife lived. He was the heir of Emberor Franz Joseph I, but was killed in Saraievo on the 28th of June, 1914. This assassination led to the start of World War I, but it was rather just an excuse to start the war finally. The heir and his wife was both murdered that time, and they are buried here. They made their home a museum of how they lived, what they liked, and about that fateful day as well.

Austria - Day #2

Day #2

We visited the Hundertwasser houses in the morning. The architect must have thought of himself being the austrian Gaudi. These flats are interesting concepts when scribbled on paper, but to build them in real life, it's insane. They are ugly, and as I've heard, it's inhabitants hate these flats. They are not comfortable at all. But it's a famous tourist spot, so I guess they won't demolish thee buildings for a while.

Then we went to the National History Museum (or something like that). It's a baroque style building, with rich ornaments on the inside. It had tons of ancient items from far away lands. We visited the ancient egyptian, greek, roman and mezopotanian artifacts mostly.

After this we took a walk in the city, visiting famous building, but I don't remember most of them. It was so rainy, and my legs hurt so bad I couldn't wait it to be over. Some pictures of the city, the last two pictures show the Saint Stephen cathedral.

At the end of the day we visited a crypt where they put the coffins of the members of the royal Habsburg family.