Greetings from Vienna! It has been a whirlwind of a study tour! One of the great benefits of this trip (besides meeting university and foundation reps, and connecting with colleagues) has been our chance to explore, meaning that some days we have free time where we can choose our own adventure. Today was one of those days!
The Volksgarten in full bloom.
After arriving in Vienna late the day before, we started our first full day in the city with a walking tour. Home to some of the greatest artistic and intellectual figures in history, Vienna was THE center of royalty for the region and offers many sites to explore! We were able to admire the central 1st District also known as Vienna’s Old Town, before venturing further out along the Ringstrasse. Other highlights included the Burgtheater, Cafe Landtmann, the Austrian Parliament, the Volksgarten, and the Hofburg Imperial Palace to name a very select few.
As an aside: a few of us were able to visit the Parliament building the day after and it is definitely worth the stop – well-done informative and interactive displays throughout! We also snagged breakfast at Cafe Landtmann. Nothing like a double espresso and a sacher torte to start the day!
Ethan and Michael ponder life while staring at the claws of an Allosaurus.
We arrived at the palace, where a few of us broke off from the tour to visit Naturhistorisches Museum Vienna. Located on Maria-Theresien-Platz, the Museum of Natural History sits directly across from Kunsthistorisches Museum (the Museum of Fine Art). The museums were founded in 1889 by Franz Joseph I of Austria and designed to look outwardly identical – an intentional way of emphasizing the importance of both science and the arts, equally revered.
We spent a few hours exploring the more than 30 exhibit halls, from minerals to extinction events, to dinosaurs, early man, and the vast diversity of taxidermy animal-life (some sadly now extinct). The museum boasts quite an impressive catalog, with a fraction of their entire specimen collection on display. It was hard not to be in awe of the Diplodocus in one hall and the Venus of Willendorf in another.
Pure Joy captured by Jesse Wieland.
Following our museum jaunt, we ventured to Via Toledo Enopizzeria, a restaurant that was recently voted by 50 Top Pizza as having the best pizza in Europe. The Nero di Marinara was delicious and lived up to the hype, as evidenced by the following candid photo.
All and all, an eventful, informational, and gastronomically pleasing day – and still so much more to learn and explore in Vienna!
Written by Bonnie Garcia-Gloeckner, Assistant Director for the Office of National Fellowships at Florida State University.