Vienna and Salzburg

Here is the trip in the order that it occurred.  So you will only need to scroll down through the next 3 posts to read about Spring Break!

Our trip started Easter Monday, when Peter, Mike, and I hopped on the train and headed to the airport.  Getting through security with just enough time, we hopped on our plane to Vienna.  And upon our arrival, we noticed a few immediate differences   First, it was quite a bit colder than Rome.  The whole week we had weather that was around 40 degrees (Fahrenheit of course).  We even had some snow in Austria, but it was nothing as bad as the group of seminarians who were in Poland.  They got quite a bit of snow, so I am happy I wasn't there.  Anyways, we also immediately noticed how clean and efficient everything was.  It was so great being in a country where order, timeliness, and cleanliness are priorities.  I loved it.  Our first stop was Karlskirche, a church dedicated to St. Charles Borromeo.  (A shout-out here has to go to my dad, Carl!)  The church was absolutely beautiful and the highlight was easily going up to the top of the dome.  Inside the church, they built an elevator to bring you straight up in the dome.  It freaked me out to be up in the middle of a dome, but the view from the top was absolutely beautiful.  Here are some pictures of the church.

Karlskirche

Altar in Karlskirche

 After Karlskirche and checking into our hotel, we went to find Stephansdom, the Cathedral in Vienna.  The Church, dedicated to St. Stephen  the first martyr, was absolutely huge and gorgeous.  It is the seat of Cardinal Schönborn, the Cardinal-Archbishop of Vienna.  His name was thrown around during the conclave, so he is a pretty big deal.  We never saw him, but we were sure looking.  The next morning, We went to Mass there, so no pictures of the inside.  I just can't take pictures if I'm praying at Mass.  Way to distracting.

Stephansdom

That night, we continued to explore churches and  went to the church where all of the Hapsburg emperors were buried.  While I do not know a ton about the Austrian empire, it was still cool to see the tombs of all of the rulers.  I did, though, leave with a greater desire to be buried underground when I die.  It is just kind of weird to have a basement full of fancy metal caskets.... Anyways, that night we had our first Austrian meal, one that would be repeated for me many a time.  I had a Wiener Schnitzel, french fries, and a beer.  And it was awesome.  Wiener Schnitzel is super tasty, and let me tell you, the Austrians and Germans know how to brew some good beer.  And at that dinner, we were introduced to one treat that would also make many return visits on our trip, Apple Strudel.  Talk about tasty goodness.  They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, and we were trying our best to live up to that.  So we had apple strudel quite a bit, but it was so good, so how can you help it?   

The next morning, before we left, we stopped at Votivkirche, which was a Church built in thanksgiving for the Austrian Emperor not being killed during an attempted assassination   And this church, as all of them are, was beautiful.  All of these churches are huge and awesome, and if they were in America, they would be massive pilgrimage sights.  But in Vienna, they are just normal parishes.  The highlight of that church was a side chapel in the church dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe.  And if you didn't know, I absolutely love Our Lady of Guadalupe, but she is not seen very often in Europe.  She is a lot more popular in America and I very much miss seeing her frequently.  But in this church, they have an absolutely beautiful altar dedicated to her, with the image of her and an awesome stained glass window.  My favorite part was on the altar cloth, it said "Danke Maria von Guadalupe" (Thank you, Mary of Guadalupe)  

Votivkirche (Car ad on cleaning scaffolding, it is not usually there)

Viva Guadalupe!

After Vienna, we hopped on the train to Salzburg, a beautiful city in the mountains, the birthplace of Mozart, and home to the classic movie, Sound of Music.  While my mom and my sisters are huge Sound of Music fans, I cannot claim the same affection.  But it was still a great city to explore.  It was cloudy and cold, but that definitely did not dampen our spirits.  Again, we saw a lot of absolutely gorgeous churches, one of which even included the tomb of St. Rupert, the patron of Austria.  While we know nothing about him, he became one of our patrons on the trip.  So it was a pretty great day in Salzburg, seeing a lot of churches and looking at the mountains the whole time.  We enjoyed two awesome meals, one Austrian and one Greek.  The Greek was close to our hotel and we were tired, but it turned out to be one of the best meals we had that week.  The next morning, we went to tour the Salzburg castle that was situated on the top of the hill overlooking the city.  It was super cool to be inside such a historic building and to know that this castle was used as a fortress for hundreds of years to defend the city against invasions by the Protestants and the Muslims.  Without the castle, the city of Salzburg would not the be the same city it is today.  And after the castle and buying some pretzels, we hopped on the train and headed to Munich.        

Garden where some Sound of music stuff was filmed. You can see the castle in the background

River running through town with the mountains.  Beautiful.

Salzburg Cathedral

Altar inside of Cathedral
They have 5 organs in here!  Wow!

View from the Castle we toured!  The big church in the foreground is the Cathedral