Sunday Church Phot-o' the Day: Inside St. Stephen's Cathedral; Vienna, Austria

Light a candle for me. Today is my last day of being "middle aged." Tomorrow, I pass a point of demarcation and enter the fourth quarter of life (or, if you prefer baseball, the late innings).* I turn 60.

These particular candles were lit inside St. Stephen's Cathedral, the enormous and tall Gothic church that anchors the historic core of Vienna, Austria. Visited December 2018. When I was still middle aged.
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   * A footnote to explain my quarters/innings analogy. If we get 80 years on this planet, each 20-year period would be a "quarter." As of tomorrow, I will have completed the first three quarters. I do hope the game goes into overtime after the end of the fourth quarter! If you prefer to use innings, then each decade of life is an inning. Traditionally, the middle innings would be the fourth, fifth, and sixth innings, with the sixth inning ending the sixth decade. The seventh inning is considered "late innings."

Three Churches, One Afternoon

Horse-drawn carriage parked outside St. Peter's

The walking tour done, next on the agenda is checking out some church interiors.  The free walking tours I've been on do not involve going inside the buildings you're seeing.  So let's see some churches.

First up:  St. Stephen's.  This is the giant.  The walking tour ended at this point on building's west side.  It once was among the tallest buildings in the world, at 444ft in height.  The ornate spires reminds me of Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.  (Yes, St. Stephen's is much older.  So, technically, it would be correct to flip it say that the spires of Sagrada Familia remind one of St. Stephen's)

Note the black stone.  This is not the natural color of the rock.  The building is made of sandstone, which absorbs pollutants like a sponge.

The building apparently is under a perpetual state of restoration.  So, this too is like the perpetually under construction Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

It is difficult to get a good angle because of the height, and with a real city packed around it.  So maybe this view will work:

Nice of them to include a miniature.

From the south side you can get a decently comprehensive angle:

Let's go in.

One last look at St. Stephen's, framed by its neighbors.

And, look, there's a horse-drawn carriage.

Instead, I'll walk to the next destination.

Michaelskirche.  On Michaelerplatz.

This isn't austere, by any means, but it was far less opulent that St. Stephen's.

I lit a candle and placed it off by itself.

This is my art photo, with the candle I lit being in the foreground.

Out of Michaelskirche and back into the streets of Tourist Vienna.  Like most streets in Vienna, this is an upscale shopping street.  This one, Kohlmarkt, appears to be a very upscale shopping street.

There are so many statues and monuments it's hard to keep track.  Basic rule, if it's not obviously an homage to Mozart, then it is almost guaranteed to be Hapsburg related.

I looked it up.  (Imagine!)  It's the Wiener Pestsäule, a memorial to plague victims in Vienna, built in the late 17th Century (which means it was built by Hapsburg money) (so I was sort of tangentially correct with my Hapsburg comment above).

The name sounds too much like "pustule" to me.  I know that seems to be somewhat childish, but the bubonic plague epidemic did involve pustules appearing on the body, so, no, it's apropros.

Speaking of apropos, next up is the third church on this Three Church Afternoon.

Kirche St. Peter's.  On Petersplatz.

Handsome church and a hansom cab.  The interior falls comfortably in between St. Stephen's and St. Michael's on the ornate scale.

And when I walked out, there was a horse drawn carriage.

I looked at those two horses, both beautiful white, out in the rain, pulling tourists around a crowded city for just oats a day.  And I couldn't help thinking that one of those horses would've said to the other:  "I coulda been a Lippizaner.  I coulda been somebody,"

Rains are getting stronger.  And it's past time for my afternoon.  I walk past the Opera.

I'm not sure why the pink rabbit is hanging out in front of the Opera, but why not.

Trams!

Vienna is absolutely lousy with tourists on a Tuesday in December.  I don't even want to imagine what this place must be like in summer peak tourist season.

When Will You Realize Vienna Waits for You

Slow down crazy child.

First item of today's agenda:  the Free Walking Tour of Vienna.

Off to Helmut Zilk-Platz for the start of the tour.  Past the Opera building.  Unfortunately for me, Helmut Zilk-Platz is extremely close to my hotel.  I get there way early.

Where's the fire what's the hurry about?  OK.  I've exhausted the lyric snippets from Billy Joel's "Vienna" (probably his best song).  I've got time, so let's explore the neighborhood.

First up, Augustin-Kirche, St. Augustine Church, the private church of the Hapsburg royals.

It's very white.

Parts of several Hapsburg's are buried here.  Heart parts to be specific.  So, yes, the Hapsburgs would have said, "Bury my heart at Augustine-Kirche."

Do I have time for another church?   Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true.  (I thought I said I was done with the Billy Joel "Vienna" lyric snippets.  Though you can see when you're wrong, you know, you can't always see when you're right.

Kapuzinekirche.

Must simpler than the Hapsburgs' palace-like cathedrals.

This is a chapel attached to a Capuchin monastery.

So the austerity is part of the plan.

The appointed hour for the start of the Walking Tour was drawing close, time to scurry back to Helmut Zilk-Plaza.

Where I learn the scupltures are anti-fascist imagery.

The stones were quarried from the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp, where the Austrian Jews were sent to work.

The Jewish population in Austria went from about 200,000 before the Anschluss (literally, "annexation") of Austria into the Third Reich, to 5,000 post WWII.  Of those, 65,000 were murdered in the concentration camps.  Most of the rest fled.
 

Doesn't that put you in the mood for a fun walking tour?

Let's explore the Hapsburg palace area.

Lots of horse drawn carriages in the tourist core of Vienna.

By the way, the tourist core of Vienna is Vienna.  The whole city is a tourist core.

And they are quite photogenic, which is why I took lots and lots and lots and lots of pictures of them.  Even though I would never ride in one.
 

That is not a "foreshadowing" of a picture of me sitting in one flashing the thumps up.  I have no interest in riding in one.  I don't judge others who make their own lifestyle choices.  If you want to ride in a horse-drawn carriage, let that particular freak flag fly.

When will you realize?  The hansom cab waits for you.

When it comes to fitting in snippets of lyrics from Billy Joel's "Vienna," so much to do and only so many hours in a day.

This area is Heldenplatz, Heroes' Square.  Hitler gave a famous speech in Vienna from the balcony of the building below.

Sorry for all the Hitler references, especially since I am trying to keep this light.  But only the Hapsburgs dominate the political history of Vienna more than Hitler.

So more horse drawn carriages to lighten the mood.

Speaking of horses, we did walk past the theater where the Lippizaner stallions perform, the Spanish Riding School, along with the stables, but the horses weren't out and prancing, so no photos.

This is Wolfgang, our guide, winding down the tour.  Which ended with this

The spire of St. Stephen's Cathedral, the enormous cathedral that dominates the center of Vienna.  So, despite the warning in the song, I did not kick off before I even got halfway through.  I got the whole way through my Free Walking Tour of Vienna.