Wow, what an amazing week this has been. Visiting Europe during one of the biggest snows and longest cold snaps….at the same time as the holiday season…. has been a unique experience to say the least! This weekend it is snowing and windy (i.e. bitterly cold) again in Vienna, but we have tickets to indoor events such as Mozart/Strauss concerts, the Spanish Riding School, and I am meeting someone from the local quilt magazine today at the Museum of Applied Arts!
http://www.viennaconcerts.com/
http://www.srs.at/index.php?id=265
http://www.mak.at/e/jetzt/f_jetzt.htm
It has been very interesting to learn about the local versions of Art Nouveau – i.e. Jugendstil and the Secession movement. But perhaps what was most interesting was to travel through former communist countries, and hear what life was like before the Berlin Wall was taken down in 1989 …before the Velvet Revolution in these countries. After traveling through the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary, I have a much better sense of history in Eastern Europe. As a kid we really were not taught much about this part of the world, that was under the Iron Curtain at the time.
Vienna is full of music, which is absolutely delightful for me. Yesterday we took a "city tour" riding around the Ringstrasse on a bus, then out to see Sch?nbrunn which is the most popular sightseeing in Vienna. It is here that the Vienna Philharmonic gives summer performances in the vast gardens (similar to Versailles' gardens), and it was here that Marie Antoinette grew up, one of 16 children birthed (of which 13 survived infancy) by Empress Marie Theresa, who were then married off to various royals all over Europe. It is also here that the last Habsburg emperor abdicated in 1918.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gardens_of_Versailles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habsburg_Monarchy
If you've seen the movie "Young Victoria", you saw the scene where young Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg is at his family palace in Austria – and you can see that palace in oldtown Vienna.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_of_Saxe-Coburg
Although the monarchy is long gone in Vienna, you can see and hear the still-vital products of their prodigious patronage of the arts here, from the monumental embellished architecture, to the decorative arts that are literally everywhere, and the music that seems to pour out of every building. One can't help but think of the many movies that have been made about the flourishing of the arts here, " Amadeus" being one of the most obvious! The director of this movie was Milos Forman, who grew up in Prague after becoming an orphan when his parents died in Auschwitz.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086879/
My 2 favorite activities in Prague were visiting the Alphonse Mucha museum, and cruising the Danube at night with snowflakes falling and Strauss waltzes on the sound system while admiring the illuminated architecture.
Prague was rather difficult to tour, because of the heavy snow that occurred while we were there. Budapest on the other hand was one of the most stunningly beautiful cities I have ever seen, with its illuminated Buda palace up on the cliff overlooking the river, and the incredibly decorated interior of the Matthias Church. I am sure it is going to take a long time for me to process everything I have seen, but in the meantime I am posting photos of this trip on my photo page, to share the incredible art, color and design inspirations that I gathered in this so-called "Golden Triangle" of Vienna, Prague and Budapest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Buda_Castle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthias_Church
http://www.flickr.com/photos/luanarubin/
So that is my holiday gift to you – to share all of my best images from this trip – and to share my thoughts about the incredible history of the creative force that flows through these cities – a vast unending source like the Danube River that has inspired centuries of beauty and art – and is entering a new era of contemporary creativity in which we can all participate.
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thank you so much for posting these pictures – it made my heart soar to look at them!