Europe Post #6: Thursday, June 28

Well Thursday morning, the whole group was scheduled to head to the Stephansdom (St. Stephen's Cathedral), but due to a huge mass for schoolchildren, we relocated to the Art History Museum. Melissa and I actually got temporarily lost so we walked for 35 minutes, never made it to the Stephansdom but beat our group to the Museum. Quite a way to start the morning.

Outside the Art History Museum.

The Museum of Natural History right across from the Art Museum.

Side note. Vienna has very little trash. Trash cans can be hard to find. And when you find them, they are very small. Recycling is abundant, and it's not uncommon to have glass bottles. Exhibit A (small trashcan):

I could go on and on about the paintings we learned about. Renaissance, Baroque, etc. I had never heard about most of the artists. So in the interest of time, I am sharing my two favorite painitings.

The Tower of Babel:

I don't remember the name of this one, but there were like 5 other similar ones. The same face composed of different things (this one is fruit, another was water, the original, etc.).

The National Library. The historic main hall is actually the "ballroom" that inspired the ballroom in Beauty and the Beast. Like the Disney version. Awesome.

Our tour guide showing us an old book.

A Bible.

Thursday night, nine of us headed to the train station to catch a TWELVE hour train to Venice, Italy.  Crazy.  And exhausting.  Instead of "airplane-style" seating, we were in 6-person compartments.  Thankfully, I ended up in one with one of the Auburn guys and managed to get a decent night's sleep.