Walking Tour

Today we got a walking tour from Kathy where she took us down towards the city center and past the national library and through the Spanish Riding School and finally to the Roman ruins. After the Walking tour we were on our own until 8pm when we were to go to a Mozart concert. The tour started effectively at the National Library which is located right on the Ringstrasse, it’s architecture is very common for the time period it was built, the 18^th century. It is located within the Hofburg Palace. Unfortunately for us, we could not go into the library and just walk around to check it out. But the idea when it was built was that it would have another building of similar style on the opposite side of it, forming a U shaped area. However, due to wars and financial problems, it never happened. Today we learned that the reason for the Habsburg Dynasty formation was due to the stabilization of Vienna in the mid-10^th century by Otto I. After that the Babenburgs reigned over the region until 1246 when their lineage died out, and the Habsburgs took over absolutely. After the grassy area in front of the National Library, we walked through the Spanish Riding School and then to the Romans Ruins. The ruins were really interesting because they were found pretty recently around 1990, and now they are on display to the public right in the middle of the square. It is amazing that it took this long to find all this and that there is still more out there to be found.

After the walking tour we had the Mozart Requiem at the Karlkirche. We walked in and sat down and then the performance began, it was really beautiful and amazing how brilliant Mozart was at composing these pieces because of there complexity. For me as a novice concert listener it was incredible. Not my cup of tea to say, but the voices of the background opera singers were a perfect match for the music. It was interesting that at the end of the show there were a couple guys in our group that gave a standing ovation, and later we found out that that does not happen at these kinds of concerts. I’m not sure if that means it was disrespectful or not, but it was funny to see them being the only 2 people standing up in a room of a hundred people or so. I will say that as my first experience at one of these kinds of concerts that they are really cool, but that I don’t like the lack of interaction with the audience. It is hard to sit there and listen for me, because I feel like I am just watching them on TV or something. Maybe I will have a different experience at the next concert