Viennese CHAD

Here CHAD stands for Cuisine, History, Architecture, and Dead People. On the cuisine part of things, Vienna had all sorts of delicious food to try; from Kämpfen, a sort of jelly donut like pastry filled with warm apricot jam; to Bierfleck, which is a bit like think crust pizza which we believe was covered with Gruyere; and Ham and Eggs, fairly simple with heartiness and flavor to spare. In the History aspect, our walking tour with Herbert was quite delightful, as we learned quite a bit about the politics of Vienna and how the Architecture of the city has much to do with it’s history. One of the more important museums, the Albertina, was built because of a law requiring citizens to house soldiers, so a new law was passed, allowing nobles and rich people to house soldiers by building on top of the city wall. However, Albert of Saxony and Maria Christina built a palace on the city wall and housed the soldiers elsewhere, leading to the Albertina. There are so many hidden things to find in Vienna, one of them being the catacombs of St. Stephans. Here, our group saw a fraction of the nearly 11,000 dead bodies buried there in mass graves to the internal organs of the Hapsburg Emperors, don’t ask, look up what happened to the Hapsburg’s after they die yourself and be amazed.