One of the draws of Austria for us was the super-scenic, small-gauge, decrepit antique railroad called the Marizellerbahn, leading from a small town outside Vienna all the way to a small town in the Austrian Alps called Mariazell, home of great views and a church with a miraculous statue of the Virgin Mary.
Even the company running the train was adorable. Note how the 'o' on the left looks like a bear. GAWWWW
The ride there was in fact super-scenic and super-slow. The train is scheduled to take 2 and a half hours to cover the 76 kilometers up to Mariazell. (Do the math. It's bad.) Our train in fact took over three hours, which means even more alpine views for us.
The train station was a short walk from town via this gorgeous path clinging to the sides of the hill:
Town itself is adorable and of decent size - it apparently receives a million pilgrims a year!
The church itself was just incredible. There were a decent number of older Austrian pilgrims about, many of whom had taken the train with us. Apparently the church was originally a smaller (but still pretty big) Gothic church (center), and was later on expanded in baroque style. The three steeple look is a bit funny and classic of old churches - everything has been added to or reconstructed at one point or another!
Unfortunately they were very serious about taking no pictures so we obliged. The interested can read more on their website. What they did allow us to do was buy a piece of Mariazell-themed chocolate for a euro. We obliged. The chocolate was good.
We also wandered around town a bit. We wanted to get a beer and lunch at the local brauhaus (microbrew) but it was closed :( We settled on a nice homey Austrian place instead.
We found this window display while walking around. Don't ask me. I don't know.
While doing a bit of shopping, we also tried a bit of locally-produced herbal liqueurs. They were great and very herbally!
After having been hot all day, it rained and cooled off a bit in the afternoon. This means we also got much less-washed out pictures of the countryside on the way back. One is below:
In general, I've been a bit disappointed by the weather - hot and sunny almost all the time, whereas central Europe can easily have summer highs as low as 70 and has a reputation for being rainy. Today I saw one screen saying we hit 97 in Vienna and it felt like it! In another few days, all of central Europe is supposed to cool back down.
Today, we decided to indulge our nerdy side and visit the globe and Esperanto museums. I enjoyed this 17th century map for being so blank through our home - the Great Lakes and Midwest.
The Esperanto Museum was awesome if very short. Esperanto is a constructed, artificial language that was designed to be the new international language. Apparently, it would put interpreters out of a job! (The man on the left being waved away has a hat that says interpreter.) I am obviously therefore opposed:
They talked a little bit about some of the history of Esperanto. It was created in the 19th century and has always been a bit cooky. People have dreamed of it ending war and bringing humanity together in brotherhood. Unfortunately, it turns out that those billions of potential brothers are too attached to wars and their own languages to participate in this utopian dream. Alas.
They had a great exhibit where you played a Pac-Man clone and had to eat up the ghosts with little grammatical parts on them to create sensible Esperanto. For example, they would present the rule to you and then might say "What does 'I write' mean in Esperanto?" and give "mi skrib-" and so you have to eat the "-as" ghost because "-as" is the present tense ending in Esperanto. More fun that it sounds, actually.
Don't know what this is. Awesome, though.
We also found this beautiful church wandering around Vienna, called Minoritenkirche. It seems to be a gothic church (right) with offices for a school, other Italian-language Catholic stuff in Vienna, and possibly offices for the Franciscans (left).
In it is an absolutely incredible mosaic replica of da Vinci's Last Supper. Glare was tough in this picture; hence, the funny angle.
Emily noted the meta (and beautiful!) altarpiece. In it, angels are holding a painting.
Tomorrow, we're on a day trip to Bratislava. Send us some comments if you please!
Even the company running the train was adorable. Note how the 'o' on the left looks like a bear. GAWWWW
The ride there was in fact super-scenic and super-slow. The train is scheduled to take 2 and a half hours to cover the 76 kilometers up to Mariazell. (Do the math. It's bad.) Our train in fact took over three hours, which means even more alpine views for us.
The train station was a short walk from town via this gorgeous path clinging to the sides of the hill:
Town itself is adorable and of decent size - it apparently receives a million pilgrims a year!
The church itself was just incredible. There were a decent number of older Austrian pilgrims about, many of whom had taken the train with us. Apparently the church was originally a smaller (but still pretty big) Gothic church (center), and was later on expanded in baroque style. The three steeple look is a bit funny and classic of old churches - everything has been added to or reconstructed at one point or another!
Unfortunately they were very serious about taking no pictures so we obliged. The interested can read more on their website. What they did allow us to do was buy a piece of Mariazell-themed chocolate for a euro. We obliged. The chocolate was good.
We also wandered around town a bit. We wanted to get a beer and lunch at the local brauhaus (microbrew) but it was closed :( We settled on a nice homey Austrian place instead.
We found this window display while walking around. Don't ask me. I don't know.
While doing a bit of shopping, we also tried a bit of locally-produced herbal liqueurs. They were great and very herbally!
After having been hot all day, it rained and cooled off a bit in the afternoon. This means we also got much less-washed out pictures of the countryside on the way back. One is below:
In general, I've been a bit disappointed by the weather - hot and sunny almost all the time, whereas central Europe can easily have summer highs as low as 70 and has a reputation for being rainy. Today I saw one screen saying we hit 97 in Vienna and it felt like it! In another few days, all of central Europe is supposed to cool back down.
Today, we decided to indulge our nerdy side and visit the globe and Esperanto museums. I enjoyed this 17th century map for being so blank through our home - the Great Lakes and Midwest.
The Esperanto Museum was awesome if very short. Esperanto is a constructed, artificial language that was designed to be the new international language. Apparently, it would put interpreters out of a job! (The man on the left being waved away has a hat that says interpreter.) I am obviously therefore opposed:
They talked a little bit about some of the history of Esperanto. It was created in the 19th century and has always been a bit cooky. People have dreamed of it ending war and bringing humanity together in brotherhood. Unfortunately, it turns out that those billions of potential brothers are too attached to wars and their own languages to participate in this utopian dream. Alas.
They had a great exhibit where you played a Pac-Man clone and had to eat up the ghosts with little grammatical parts on them to create sensible Esperanto. For example, they would present the rule to you and then might say "What does 'I write' mean in Esperanto?" and give "mi skrib-" and so you have to eat the "-as" ghost because "-as" is the present tense ending in Esperanto. More fun that it sounds, actually.
Don't know what this is. Awesome, though.
We also found this beautiful church wandering around Vienna, called Minoritenkirche. It seems to be a gothic church (right) with offices for a school, other Italian-language Catholic stuff in Vienna, and possibly offices for the Franciscans (left).
In it is an absolutely incredible mosaic replica of da Vinci's Last Supper. Glare was tough in this picture; hence, the funny angle.
Emily noted the meta (and beautiful!) altarpiece. In it, angels are holding a painting.
Tomorrow, we're on a day trip to Bratislava. Send us some comments if you please!
Ha! I like the painting within a painting bit. This looks like such a pretty and nice place to visit. And I'm jealous of all the train-riding you all are doing!
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've ever seen Pac-Man used successfully in linguistics-themed games. I imagine it can be quite tricky, because of the speed at which you have to move and read. Kudos to whoever made this one.
That statue you're wondering about (the picture after Emily playing Pac-Man) might be related to the link below? It doesn't seem quite right, though I couldn't come up with a better guess.
www.theoi.com/Ther/KetosTroias.html