So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye
Farewell Vienna!
Today was our last full day in Vienna! It's crazy how quickly this whole program has gone by. It feels like just yesterday that I was wandering through the gardens of Schonbrunn for the first time, seeing the light hit the palace, having my first zwickl, ordering too big a goulash, and meeting people that I would go on to spend nearly every waking minute with for a month. I truly can't imagine what this summer would have been like without this program and I'm so glad I got the chance to do it. That said, there's still a whole day to get through!
As a way to bid goodbye to this city I've called home for a month, my friends and I got together to do a greatest hits tour. We started at one of our favorite hangout spots: The Hofburg Palace. While there, we stopped into the Palmenhaus Cafe for a delicious breakfast and our last melange! The Palmenhaus Cafe was a lot smaller than the Schonbrunn Palmenhaus but was one of the most beautiful cafes I've ever been in.
Based on the Orangerie at Schonbrunn, this 1820s building was once the plant house for the Hofburg Palace. When it was demolished in the early 20th century, it was rebuilt to look similar but with more contemporary elements to mimic the graphic visual style popular at the time. Today, it holds this lovely cafe, as well as the butterfly house and a small plant collection.
All of this is inside the Burggarten, a beautiful garden behind the Hofburg Palace where young people come to hang out, rest in the sun, and picnic. For a very long time, people were not allowed to sit on the grass there but, in 1979, a series of sit-in protests lifted those restrictions and now the beautiful lawn is fully available to relax on.
After leaving the Palmenhaus Cafe, we went to the Votivkirche.
Looking at this building, you would assume it was built a lot earlier than it actually was. This neo-Gothic structure is meant to look old but, actually, only dates back to 1879. After an assassination attempt on Emperor Franz Joseph, his brother ordered the construction of the Votivkirche as an offering to God for saving his brother.
One of the first buildings built on the Ringstraße, the Votivkirche is a beautiful structure filled with wildly impressive stained glass that explores important moments in Austria's and the Habsburgs' history. This includes everything from colonization in Mexico to the Holocaust thanks to extensive restorations in the 1970s to repair damage from the Second World War.
From the Votivkirche we made our way to the Belvedere, my personal favorite palace grounds in Vienna.
Unlike literally every other time I've been to the Belvedere, the whole complex was strangely quiet. It was great to be able to walk around Eugene of Savoy's palace almost completely alone and it gave all of us an opportunity to get pictures with the building and the sculptures around the gardens.
After our quick visit to the Belvedere, we made our way to Stephansplatz for some last minute souvenir shopping and a final glance at Stephansdom. After all I've seen here, I can confidently say Stephansdom was not my favorite of Vienna's many landmarks. I found Stephansplatz to be overly crowded and touristy and the church, while impressive, to be not more special than other churches to such a degree that it made braving the crowds worth it.
However, I will miss the beautiful views from the top of the South Tower. Walking all the way up to the top of that tower was a major accomplishment and, contrasted to the rest of the church, was one of my favorite activities I did while here. It may not have been my favorite, but I sure am glad I got to say a proper goodbye to such an important icon of the city.
After our greatest hits tour was over, it was time to meet the rest of the group at Kent for our goodbye dinner. It was emotional sitting at a table with 28 people I had never met until just 4 weeks ago who I know won't reunite like this again. I wasn't necessarily super close with everyone, there were definitely friend groups that formed within the larger class, but to sit in this garden surrounded by everyone I got to do this with was a fantastic way to end this experience.
Tomorrow I meet up with my parents to go to the Prater and Schonbrunn one last time as well as finally getting a pork knuckle at Schweizerhaus and then it's off to Venice and Bologna before I go back to London, but it won't be like this ever again. I don't know if anything will ever be like this again. In this crazy, incredible, month I've laughed, I've cried, I've been to the top of the tallest mountains, hundreds of meters underground, on Austrian theme park rides, at clubs, inside monasteries, drunk with a priest at a wine garden, walking nearly 10 miles a day, and constantly surrounded by people I've become extraordinarily close with. I've eaten pounds of schnitzel and blood sausage, drank gallons of beer, and been helpfully woken up by more melanges than I can count. Everything I got to do here added together to create one of the most deeply impactful experiences of my life and I will cherish every memory that Vienna and this program has given me.
Maybe one day I'll be back but, for now, thanks for reading.
