I visited Austria in February this year and let me tell you it was freezing, although I have to say Vienna covered in a carpet of snow is quite a sight. I took my camera around the bustling city and captured as many moments as I could.
One of the first places I visited was the Schonbrunn Palace, the former home of the Habsburg Imperial Family. The grounds are beautiful and grand, in the corner of the estate is the original zoo with a variety of wild animals.
The palace has 1,441 rooms and is one of the most important architectural, cultural and historical monuments in Austria. It is now a huge tourist attraction and it isn't hard to see why.
The whole setting has a historical eerie atmosphere, frost lines the paths all around the gardens. The trees and plants were now bare after winter the whole enviorment felt stripped back and open.
The whole space wasn't modernised or tampered with, it felt natural and pure. Of course people were tending to the gardens and I am sure looking after the grand up-keep of the palace but the manner in which it was done was so delicate. I can imagine it didn't look dramatically different when it opened in the 1700s.
After exploring the hidden gems of the exquisite and elegant palace from the inside we moved onto the zoo. Still with a lot of the original cages the zoo still exists in the corner of the gardens, tucked away. As much as my personal beliefs are that its cruel to keep wild animals trapped in cages, the architecture of the design was
enchanting. The curve shapes of the designs sit hand in hand with the envoriment and trees surrounding them.
There was a range of different animals in the zoo, many rare and endangered species too. The zoo even had a polar bear which I was unable to get a photo of due to my shock and outrage that it was even living in such a small cage. Again as much as I think its mostly worng to lock up animals this did add to the originality feeling that nothing had really changed and the only real difference now was hopefully better conditions for the animals and the fact the public were now walking aimlessly around the park.
The next place I visited while in Vienna was the Kunsthistorisches Museum which featured a range of different art from various artists. Below are some of my favourite pieces from the day. I loved the modern art looking at shape, dramatic close ups and simple slogans.
The bottom two left images focus on arranged marriages and losing a childhood through getting married so young. I felt the images were simplistic but also dramatic with there use of two objects which both have great symbolism to them. Barbie symbolises innocence, naivety and playfulness whereas the cigerette symbolises rebellion and addiction and weakness. The contrast with the pastal atheistically pleasing colours behind work well with the contrast, Painterly vs linear.
The last place I was to visit was a rollercoaster restaurant, the concept interested me and I had never experienced anything like it before. I can't imagine the money it cost to create, at the top of the building was a robot which made the cocktails before sending them down the rollercoaster. There was one waitress for the whole restaurant and someone who was managing the robot but apart from the there was no other staff on the floor. Each table had a end of the rollercoaster which comes down a final shoot and hits a stopper, stopping the food and making it easily able for people to get the food that they had ordered. All the food its self was ordered via a tablet given to each guest at the till on the way in. This restaurant was defiantly focusing on the experience rather than the quality of the food. I found the whole experience very enjoyable and it felt like a skip into the future, the virtual reality world coming to life in front of my eyes.
Vienna was a enjoyable experience full of a variety of different encounters for everyone, including art, food and architecture. I enjoyed so many different aspects, Vienna has a certain feel to it that many places I have visited in the past just don't.
I would defiantly go back and visit again.
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