Harvest Festival, Sisi Museum, and Spanish Riding School

Last weekend we stayed in Vienna, but still had a lot of fun.
Cora's mom and sister were in Vienna for the weekend, so I spent Friday night and Saturday with them.
On Saturday we planned to go on a tour at the Spanish Riding School. On the way there from the subway we passed the front of the Hofburg, which was swarming with people. It was a harvest festival with booths selling traditional foods, jams, honey, and crafts. There was a large stage setup with a big band playing a polka. On the lawn between the booths there were bails of hay decorated with vegetables, a little random, but they looked cool.
When we got the the riding school, we were told we would have to wait about 3 hours for the next tour. So, we decided to go to the Sisi (Empress Elizabeth) museum. I'm sure I've told you about Sisi before. She's basically the Austrian Princess Di. She was an the Empress of Austria-Hungary about 100 years ago and was famous for being very obsessed with beauty. She had a 51cm waist (20"), slept with a leather and raw-veal beauty mask, washed her hair in bourbon and eggs, identified with Titania Queen of the Fairies from Shakespeare's Midsummer Nights Dream, refused to have any portrait painted of her after she turned 30, and was stabbed to death in Geneva with a nail file. After her death her life she became a symbol of beauty and opulence. We weren't allowed to take photos in the museum or in the royal apartments, so, sadly I have nothing to show you.

Some things about the royal apartments that stood out to me:
- The Emperor and Empress slept in extremely simple twin sized iron beds which appeared to be afterthoughts in their lavish bedrooms. They looked really out of place.
- All the rooms were connected to one another in a row, with no separate hallway. So, to get from the conference room to the grand salon, you had to walk through both the Emperor and Empresses bedrooms and studies. I assume people would have gone outside and come back in at another entrance, but it seems odd.
- There were secret doors everywhere, visible only by their hinges, handles and the (not always obvious) rectangular seam. These were servants doors which also lead to the heating hallways where servants filled the large ceramic stoves from behind to avoid making a mess in the royal rooms.
- Sisi had a gym in her study (to stay fit, skinny, and young) which was very very odd at that time. She had parallel bars, a pull-up bar and rings screwed into one of the doorways.
- On the tour, the audio-guide talked about the habits of the emperor. For instance, he woke up every morning at 3:30! sleeping in until 4:30 if he had a late night. Also, the palace was kept at 14-15°C, as anything more was 'wasteful' (sounds like my dad).

The museum also contained the royal dinner service museum. Basically, a whole lot of old dishes. Apparently the royal service was able to serve 5000 people at once, and one of the many elaborate centrepieces made out of mirror and gold, was able to extend to 15m! Finally a table that can hold all of my family for Christmas. Here are some of the candelabras from the collection, towers of molded and carved gold.
There was also an extensive collection of Oriental ceramics brought over from representatives from China and Japan, then incorporated into useful objects by Austrian silversmiths. I thought the candlestick guy below was pretty cool, and really random.
This centrepiece just looked like something from Dr.Seus. At one time, all the ceramic fruits held scented potpourris, and the central silver trunk held burning incense.
The Spanish Riding School is also located in the Hofburg, and is the home of the famous Lipizzan stallions. Picture also weren't allowed in the SRS, but before I learned that I got a good picture of the arena where the shows take place.
The School is almost 500 years old, making it the oldest in the world, and is very steeped in tradition. Only Lipizzan stallions born in Piba, Austria from talented paternal lineages can be trained, and they can only be sat upon by a few dozen men educated at the riding school.

We also crossed the street to the stables where the 69 stallions are kept. The stables take up the entire first floor of an old palace, and are literally in the centre of Vienna. I've been walking by the stables dozens of times and never knew they were there. The stables have carved plaster ceilings and marble troughs, it's a bit over the top, but so is everything else in Vienna. We saw all of the horses, and the various harnesses and saddles custom made for every horse. I swear, these horses have a much better life than anyone I know. They live in a palace in the centre of the old city, have their rooms cleaned every hour, do two shows a month, only really train for an hour a day, have a three month vacation every summer in Piba, retire to the Austrian countryside, and have life expectancies that exceed most other horses.


On Sunday MA and I went back to the harvest festival. It was really packed, but we discovered a parade in progress, so it was fun.After the parade we went to Leopoldsberg to meet up with some other people for the walk up a ~400m mountain (Leopoldsberg) to the fortress-church/Heurigen at the top. At the Heurigen we drank some wine, ate some traditional salt bread, and MA and I had some homemade zucchini soup because it had gotten much colder, and we were wearing shorts. Unfortunately I stopped off at my room before going and left my camera behind. However, I might be going back this Sunday to show Cora, if so, I'll be sure to bring my camera along.

For those of you who care but don't already know, I'm moving one week today to an apartment in the 17th district, which is actually a little (4min) closer to work. Then later that night I leave for Munich. So, this weekend will probably be a very cheap one, we'll probably go to the opera on Saturday, who knows.

Last night we were supposed to go to a swimming pool/disco on a boat in the Danube, but it was too expensive, so instead we went to a nice restaurant. There we decided to plan a trip to Croatia/Bosnia in mid-October, hopefully it works out, I'll keep you informed.