Thursday, April 8, 2010 (Part 2):We were now in Vienna - our third stop during this vacation week. We arrived here mid-morning and immediately hit the streets. We had a GREAT day. Today, we spent time at: (1) Karlskirche (Karl Church), the Belvedere Palaces (Lower and Upper), Stephansdom (Church), the pedestrian walkway and Mozart's House, where we enjoyed a string quartet concert.
What a truly beautiful church Karlskirche is. After Prague, I thought I had had my fill of churches, but this church proved me very wrong. We almost didn't go inside. We were on our way to the Belvedere and were walking by and just decided on the spur
of the moment to go in. I am so glad we did.
The outside of this church is quite pretty. One of its most striking features is a roman column built to resemble Trajan's Column in ancient Rome. Since I was just in Rome seven months ago, I recognized it right away.
What appealed to me so much about this church is that it is not crammed full of monuments. It is very simply and elegantly appointed. And what was also interesting
about this church was that there was a renovation project going on, but instead of creating an obstacle, they figured out how to improve the experience of visitors.
There was a tower of scaffolding in the center of the sanctuary. It rose maybe a hundred feet or more all the way to the top of the central dome where frescos there
are being cleaned. And visitors were allowed to ride an elevator up the side of the scaffolding right up into the dome of the church. It was wonderful. We also climbed several flights of steps on additional scaffolding that took us all the way to the very top most position of the dome. It was wonderful to see the ceiling frescos so close up. The detail was incredibly impressive.
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