27 | July | 2024 | Tales from the Hutt

Monday, 01-July-2024

I adore learning new things from people. Meeting interesting personalities, absorbing little tidbits of knowledge and learning.

It’s part of what I enjoy about dating – I don’t enjoy how toxic the global dating scene has become… but I adore finding someone interesting to share knowledge and experience with.

A bit of knowledge that I’d absorbed in my time in Oregon was dressage riding – the style of competitive horse-riding where the horses and riders perform special canters and movements, who’s names and details I’m not even going to attempt to explain here. Instead, I’ll just simply state that one of the foremost dressage schools, and breeds of horses, are from Vienna – The Spanish Riding School.

Now, Spain and Austria are in fact two different countries… so why would Vienna have a riding school from Spain? Well… they weren’t always two countries. The Hapsburg Dynasty (yep, those guys again) spanned both, and established the Spanish Riding School in Vienna around 1565… making it a rather old institution. I’ll add a link to the Wiki at the bottom, for those who’re interested in learning more of the salient details.

For my experience, though, I wanted to see the school and the horses. I’d also hoped to see a performance… but due to bad luck with timing, I’d arrived just in the middle of their summer break. Another thing added to my list of “places to return to and future trip notes”, I guess.

I’m not one to give up, though, and even if the performances were on hold… well, I’m not going to miss a chance to take a tour! I woke up early(ish), made my way to the arena, and hopped on board the tour of the facilities.

It was super neat – though definitely not quite as cool as if I’d been able to see a performance afterward. We went fairly quickly, checking out the training arena, the performance hall, and even into the stables to see the horses themselves! We weren’t allowed to interact with them, of course, or take photos within the stables, but it still made for a very lovely opportunity that I’m quite happy to have experienced.

Link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Riding_School

Sunday, 30-June-2024

After adventure and excitement, I finished my quest for the Art History museum in Vienna.

I’m going to be using the term “opulent” a lot in my blog posts about Vienna, I can tell. But really, there’s no better term to use to describe this museum… it was, simply put, opulent. In every sense of the word. I mean, Vienna is already full of beautiful architecture and art everywhere I looked and walked – how could the museum of art history not step that up a few levels?

I walked in, gawked at my surroundings for a few minutes, then tracked down the cafe – it was the early afternoon, after all, and I’d been exploring around the city in the heat of the day for a few hours at that point. I needed some food, quite a bit of water, and a coffee. Thankfully, I found all three without any difficulty, and a short wait in line later I was sitting and staring at the glorious paintings and marble surrounding me.

It was interesting – I mentioned in my “Exploring Vienna” post that I felt a connection to my Grandfather in Cafe Central, since he’d likely gone there at least once with his parents… Well, the Art History museum had a similar feeling for me. It had been founded in 1891, and although I doubt the cafe was quite that old I still felt confident that, at one point or another, my Grandfather had been roughly where I was now. Knowing his own love for the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, probably multiple times.

Seeing the room around me, it helped me understand where he had been coming from in his life. He’d grown up in Vienna, likely seeing the absolute opulence and majesty as the norm. Then, to see Vienna devolve into Nazism and hate so quickly, only to have to flee to England and the United States… It was interesting, trying to set myself into that mindset and to see how that would have affected me.

I kept those thoughts in mind as I finished my meal and traversed the museum.

From Egypt to Rome, into the treasures of the Hapsburgs and onward into stunning paintings and relics from throughout the city’s history. There was one exhibit on The Fugger’s family that I didn’t quite understand, but aside from that the museum was absolutely glorious – a lesson in beauty and regality. I even found a whole segment hidden on the top floor on Cartoons! Though… not cartoons that you or I would recognize as such, instead being massive tapestries depicting specific events and battles of the Hapsburg Dynasty.

I wandered, perused, and enjoyed the grandeur surrounding me. I appreciated the air conditioning, finished my explorations, and braced myself for the heat of the early evening on my walk home.