Sad times. Today was my last day travelling Europe as I head back home tomorrow. I’d like to take some time to reflect on my amazing travels thus far:
It was fun.
Ok, that’s enough reflection for now. Now for the events of the final day! Still in the wondrous city of Vienna, just not for long enough though. Started the day with a walk to the Town Hall of Vienna which is really cool, but I mostly went to see the “Wehrmann aus Eisen” or Guard of Iron. It’s a wooden statue of a knight that has thousands and thousands of iron nails that were hammered into it. It looks really cool, and is right across from the Town Hall building which had some kind of carnival clean up being done. Looks like big tents and stands were being taken down.
Next was the main event of the day. The Haus des Meeres – House of the Sea. Remember (if you saw my post on my first day in Vienna) I went to see some enormous concrete anti-aircraft towers. Well, 6 were built, in 3 pairs of 2 in a triangular shape around the city center of Vienna. One an anti-aircraft tower, and the other rectangular one near by is a satellite/radio tower. All but 1 of the 6 towers is closed to visitors. And this one, the radio tower in the southwestern section of the city has been converted in an aquarium! It’s pretty incredible. A former colossal concrete fortress has been cut and trimmed in places to house and show off exotic animal life! At the top is a restaurant with news views above the city, as well as a tour through a preserved section of the former defense tower, with tons of old relics. Sadly I had no idea there was a tour of this kind, and there’s only 2 a day, and I missed it by a long shot.
I also had no idea there was another museum right next to this the concrete fortress, and this one is an underground exhibit on medieval torture and punishment in Vienna and Europe. Fun! It was created in association with Amnesty International, to spread awareness of, and stop government torture around the world. There was a special exhibition condemning the US base at Guantanamo Bay. The museum is a relatively short, but quite a graphic walk down hallways with scenes set up with multiple actual, and reconstructed instruments of medieval torture.
Then spent a bunch more time (after a late lunch) walking around town some more. I tried to (as mentioned yesterday) to get into St. Stephan’s Cathedral Crypt, but it was already too late and closed. Next time! I also went to check out something that looked cool – The Museum of Illusions, but it was really expensive. Oh well.
And now, for the last and final installment of German cities with a goofy name! (I edited yesterday’s post to add the castle called “Burg Hornberg” in case you missed it.) Today’s winner also isn’t really a city, but more of a region in the city of Rüdesheim am Rhein in western Germany called “Assmanshausen”. Need I say more?
Anyways, just like the first trip, it was truly an incredible and very busy experience with sooooo much seen, and sooooo much done. Things I’ll never forget and so much learned. From the north sea of Borkum, to the brick city of Lübeck, the moving Naval Monument of Laboe to the glowing palace from Schwerin, to depressing sights of Concentration Camo Buchenwald, to the Witch Mountains in Wernigerode, to the Rammelsberg Silvermines of Goslar, to the lush valley of Cochem to the Roman capital of Trier, all the way to the edge at the Ironworks Factory in Völklingen… From deep in the heart of the Black Forest in Todtnau, to the base of the Matterhorn in Switzerland, from the mountains of Grindelwald to the diamond city of Nördlingen, from Oktoberfest and the palaces in Munich to island of Lindau and medieval city of Regensburg. From the lakes of Berchtesgaden to the lake of Hallstatt, and finally from Linz and Camp Mauthausen to the grand capital of Vienna… just wow. How amazing…
79 days… excluding my 11 day cruise and 6 day visit in England beforehand. 10,467 photos, including a couple dozen videos.
7/29/2018 – 10/16/2018. And hopefully another journey to come!
jonsjourneythroughgermany.com 