Vienna and the Czech Republic

I realized this morning that I have been out of the country for 17 days. In these two and half weeks, I've covered a lot of ground, especially in the past few days.

But let's start with Vienna. I was very fortunate to have a friend to stay with for a night in this beautiful city. The first afternoon I took a long walk around the city and saw the major sites.  I climbed up 343 steps to get these aerial views of the city from St. Stephen's Cathedral. 

I also took a tour of the catacombs and had to break the rules and take a picture of these bones. Thefe are many more rooms filled with even more bones. 

I also visited the Hofburn and City Hall. 

I learned that this is the site where Vienna surrendered to Hitler and welcomed him in to the country. I found it interesting that Austria was treated as a victim when creating the peace treaties after the war was over. This is city hall. The city has a "music festival" every year where old black and white movies, classical concerts, operas, etc. are shown on a giant screen. I watched Fantasia, which was very appropriate for a city known for its classical music. 

The next day, I checked into a hostel, explored the city a bit more and put on my only nice outfit to see a classical concert. The concert hall was filled almost entirely with tour buses of the elderly but I still found the music and the opera and ballet accompaniments very enjoyable. The next day I spent several hours at the Natural Hostory Museum. It was awesome. I particularly enjoyed the displays on human evolution. 

The next day, I traveled to Pilsen, Czech Republic to visit my friend Lenka who I met doing archaeology in Portugal last year. 

First thing the next morning, we traveled across the country to the Brno area to a concert, Crimson Projekt. We had quite a lot of difficulty getting there.  But after a missed connection and having to turn around because we were on the wrong train, we finally made it to the concert, which was very enjoyable. That night we camped on a hill in a nature preserve overlooking the city of Brno. 

We checked into a hostel in Brno and did some exploring. We visited a beautiful church and the ossuary beneath it. 

We also drank some delicious Moravian wine. I always associated the Czech Republic with beer, but the Moravia region is very famous for their wine. Without the wine, I think I would have perished in the heat. 

The next day, we traveled without incident back to Pilsen and were too tired and hot and miserable to do anything that night. 

And now I am on a bus to Prague. I am excited to explore another Czech city and then to head off to Berlin Wednesday. 

Miss you all!