Our September Uniworld river cruise docked in Vienna for two full days of assorted tours. I’ve been a fan of the PBS TV show, “Vienna Blood”, so I was excited about visiting the city. Marla visited Vienna many years ago and really didn’t want to return due to the country’s centuries long history of anti-semitism. Click on this link for more information about this period of Dark History.

We passed the unusual Urania-Sternwarte observatory on our way to our first stop.

The Schonbrunn Palace is truly stunning and was the summer home of Empress Maria Theresa. The Empress had 16 children though only 10 survived to adulthood. See this link for more information.

The grounds near the entrance to the Baroque palace.

The size of outdoor gardens are quite massive as one would imagine for an imperial lifestyle..

The Schonbrunn was Empress Maria’s favorite palace. The 1441 rooms reflect the splendor and luxury of the Baroque and Rococo eras.

This is one of the highly decorated rooms in the palace with a small sculpture of the Empress in the corner.

Our guide took us to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which is also called the Museum of Fine Art. It is the largest museum in Austria and one of the most important in the world.

The Empress Maria Theresa Monument in front of the museum.

This is the main staircase and Antonio Canova´s statue of “Thesus Slaying the Centaur”.

The French artist, Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun, painted Empress Maria Theresa’s daughter, Maria Antonia, who became Archduchess Marie-Antoinette (1755−1793), Queen of France, in 1778. Marie Antoinette, the youngest daughter of Emperor Francis I and Maria Theresa, wears a robe à l’anglaise with her hair piled up in an elaborate style. The bust of Louis XVI, whom she married in 1770, can be seen in the upper right corner. The painting was destined for the young queen’s mother in Vienna who responded to her daughter with the words: “I am delighted with your large portrait!” and displayed the painting in the Hofburg Palace.

The large painting on the wall is “The Fall of the Rebel Angels” by Baroque artist Luca Giordano in 1666.

Our guide talks about “The Miracle of St. Francis Xavier” by Peter Paul Rubens, 1617-1618.

The Austrian National Library.

Our tour ended in the center of Vienna.

Time for a lunch break.

We passed an antique shop in town.

I have alway loved Art Deco sculptures.

This is the “Plague Column” erected after the great plague of 1679.

In the old University quarter.

The tour stopped for a glass of wine, always a good idea.

Our guide took us to “Judenplatz’, the center of Jewish life since the Middle Ages.

The Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial is a solemn reminder of the atrocities from 1938 to 1945 when 65,000 Austrian Jews died. Our Vienna guide told us there were actually more Austrians than Germans in the Gestapo during the war!

Around the monument are names of many concentration and extermination camps.

We left Vienna with a renewed understanding of both the beauty…as well as the terrible dark history of the past.

Dinner time on our river cruise. This was Marla’s favorite waiter who really took great care of us.

Photos: Dick Gentry. Not to be used without permission.