jjjrtw: Now in Vienna...

We didn't do a whole lot in Vienna. It's a lovely city, but I suppose we just needed a little break from big and/or expensive sights. So here in lieu of some big breakdown of Vienna is a listing of a few cool things that we did or saw here. We know that we missed some big/obvious sights, like the Schonbrunn Palace, Hapsburg Crypt, the Leopold and the Albertina (I'm really sad that we didn't make it to the Leopold! Another time hopefully), but here are some of our favorite things that we were lucky enough to have seen.

Hundertwassers
For me all of the Hundertwasser works that we saw took the very decadent Viennese cake. An amazing man who made amazing art, lived an amazing life, and had an amazing perspective that he made a difference with. If you don't know his work or his story then check him out. We couldn't take pictures inside the museum, but we took lots of pictures of his buildings that we found in the Landstrasse area of Vienna.

Front of Museum Hundertwasser

Hundertwasserhaus

Hundertwasser Village

Hundertwasser Village Bathroom

Hundertwasser Village

And here's what his art looks like:

The Beard Is the Grass of the Bald-Headed Man - [via]

Tennos Fly With Hats - [via]

The 30 Days Fax Painting - [via]

Austrian National Library
Though it took us a very long time to find the proper tourist entrance to the library, and when we did it was overpriced and we were only allowed to enter one room, it was all still worth it. Just look at these pictures.

Ceiling

Stephansdom Crypt
This crypt was first built in the 14th century and holds the remains of over 11,000 people, mostly victims of the plague, but also some remains of Hapsburg royal family and Viennese archbishops. We couldn't take pictures during our tour but here are some pictures that other people took:

by Phil King - https://flic.kr/p/LKaBY

This is the newly redone part where the archbishops are kept - by Rene Rivers - https://flic.kr/p/cTMZ1J

Piles of the bones of Plague victims that were thrown into the pits of the crypt - by Phil King - https://flic.kr/p/LKbfh

Republic of Kugelmugel
In the early 1980s Viennese artist Edwin Lipburger had a fight with the Austrian government about his spherical house, so in 1984 he declared his property an independent country which he called the "Republic of Kugelmugel" He was jailed for refusing to pay taxes and for wanting to print his own stamps, until he was pardoned by the president and his house was moved to this plot near an amusement park. It's a novelty but I love this kind of stuff. Here is what the "micro-country" of Republic of Kugelmugel looks like:

Zentralfriedhof Cemetery
We have been visiting a lot of cemeteries as of late. Not sure why we always seem to find ourselves at them, but it has been very interesting to compare some of these old city cemeteries.