Today got off to a little bit of a slow start after a rather late night yesterday. Even still I managed to fit quite a lot in today including visiting two churches and exploring some other areas of the city.
Vienna Card
The first stop this morning was to collect the Vienna Card which I had pre-purchased. The card is similar to other city attraction cards that I have used in other cities. However, it does work a little different in that it offers much lower prices or discounts rather than included entry to everything.
For me, the public transport pass may be useful later on in the trip, as I have already purchased a weekly ticket. However, since it does not start until activated, I should be able to use this for the last day or so I am here.
Museums
Once I had the card, I set off towards Karlskirche (St Charles Church). The route I followed took me past a couple of the museums in Vienna. Pictured below is first the Natural History Museum, followed by the Arts Museum.
Karlskirche
My first destination was a visit to Karlskirche (St Charles Church). You may remember I included this earlier in a post with a photo of the church at night (below). I included it in the posts “Walking The Streets Of Vienna, Austria” when I passed here during the day.
Inside Karlskirche
My visit back here today was to go inside and have a look at this church. I opted for an Audio Guide Tour to learn a little more about the church. While it is not the best audio guide I have used as there was minimal detail, it still gave me a bit more insight.
Looking around the inside of the church is just a beautiful experience. While there is some scaffolding in place while there is some restoration works in progress. There is still plenty to look at it with it only detracts minimally from the appearance. I much prefer seeing a building slightly obstructed for a short period than in disrepair.
There is a small benefit from the scaffolding as well in that it currently provides an elevator to reach up into the dome of the church. With a further staircase to the top of the lantern of the dome for views of the city. Also allowing for a rather nice close up look at the fresco on the ceiling.
St. Michael Church
I had passed by St Michael Church earlier in the week and found that it was closed. However, when I passed by this morning, there was a sign out indicating that a tour of the church in English was scheduled for 3 pm. I made sure to be back here for that time and turned out I was the only person for the tour.
Even though I was the only person for the tour, the guide still was more than happy to show me around. While the tour was scheduled as 1 hour, we spent almost 1.5 hours looking around. I cannot be sure if the tour is usually as detailed, but I got to visit some areas I did not expect to. Even though I was here so long, I found that I do not have any photos because the interior was so dimly lit.
As with many of the other churches around Vienna I have found the interior of the church to be freezing. It is a result of the buildings using massive stone blocks that need a lot of sun to transfer any warmth inside. The result of an overcast day can easily make the interior of the church much cooler than the outside temperature.
Evening Photo Walk
I had made some plans to meet with some Couch Surfers this evening. However, it turned out that those plans fell through, and I had a little trouble deciding on what to do. In the end, I decided to head out and capture images of a few of the buildings around Vienna by night. Including the photo above of Karlskirche along with the collection of photos below.
Many buildings around Vienna seem to be rather nicely lit up at night. But many are also difficult to capture with a camera due to limitations of other buildings in the way. There is also the limitation that I had without having brought a tripod with me.
