维也纳第一天 (1st Day in Vienna)

Pray for some quality English below …

7月21日 星期六

早上我俩开车离开了布拉格，花了大概5个多小时到了维也纳。中途在捷克和奥地利边界的米库洛夫小镇停留吃了午餐。其实到了那里后，才发现那里正在举行一个什么节日，在镇中心广场的地方，搭建了一个舞台，有在上面表演的团队，然后周围是卖捷克各地的小吃摊位，很多人顶着大太阳在观看表演，品尝各式小吃。我俩也尝试了几个，可惜当时太热了，我失去了拍照片的心情 😅

In the morning we left Prague and made the five hour drive to Vienna. On the way, we stopped for lunch in the small town of Mikulov on the Czech / Austrian border. To our surprise, when we got there, we found that a food festival was going on!

In the town square, they had set up a stage where a band was performing, and there were small food stands all around selling foods from various places around the Czech Republic. Many people were watching the band, sitting or standing in the hot sun and enjoying a variety of local snacks. We also tried a few dishes, but it was so hot at the time, I lost my mood to take any pictures 😅

在那里解决完午饭，一个奇特的事情发生了。在去吃午饭之前，我俩付了停车费，PJG把机器打印出来的停车票就放到挡风玻璃的下面。等我俩吃完饭，回到车里的时候，发现那个票子竟然不翼而飞！ 怎么也找不到！ 我俩排除了有人给偷走了的嫌疑，因为车里的其它东西都在。我俩真的是百思不得及其解，非常奇怪的一件事情。后来我俩猜测，一定是PJG在放停车票的时候，放到旁边那辆白色的车里了，刚好那辆车没锁门，哈哈  😄😂  唯一合理的解释吧？

下午3点多到了维也纳，在民宿安顿好后，我俩去把车停到一个可以停放三天晚上的车库，因为我俩并不打算在维也纳市里开车。从车库再回到民宿的时候，我俩买了72小时的公交票，和其它欧洲城市的系统一样，在72小时内可以任意坐公共交通工具。

到了晚饭时间，维也纳竟然雷电交加，开始下起了大雨！ 我俩在一个四川饭店结局了晚餐（这个会在以后有记录 😀） ，然后就回到民宿休息了，PJG开了一天的车， 非常累，很快就进入了梦香。

After searching the food stalls and finding something we liked for lunch (that also didn’t have a long line in front!), we returned to our car to find a strange thing had happened. Before we went to lunch, we paid the parking fee, and we put the parking slip under the windshield inside the car. However, when we finished lunch and returned to the car, we found that the ticket was gone! We couldn’t find it anywhere! We both ruled out our suspicion that someone had stolen it, because everything else in the car was there, and the car was locked. We were really puzzled. Later, we guessed that PJG had put the parking ticket inside the white car that was parked next to ours!! haha ​​😄😂 Could this be the only reasonable explanation?

After arriving Vienna at around 3pm and getting settled at the AirBnB, we took the car to a garage where we could be park for three nights because we weren’t planning on drive in the city of Vienna. We bought a 72-hour transit ticket to give us unlimited transportation for our stay.

Just about at dinner time, thunder and lightning began and the rain started to pour! We ended up having dinner at a Sichuan restaurant that was very nearby (I’ll blog about that later), then returned to the hotel for the night. PJG was very tired from the drive and soon entered dreamland.

7月22日 星期日

今天天气预报有雨，我俩的计划是追寻PJG的父亲在1949年在维也纳的旅行足迹，像在其它的地方一样，去他去过的地方并拍照留念 😊  并且同时游览维也纳。  很巧合的是，他父亲当年也是7月23日的时候来到的维也纳，正好是69年以前。 早上出门的时候在下雨，还好老天开恩啊，雨没下多久就停了，而且更幸运的是，因为厚重的乌云，今天竟然不热！

Sunday, July 22

Well, today’s weather forecast is for more rain. Our plan is to do some sightseeing of Vienna and at the same time pursue the travels of PJG’s father through his pictures from 1949.  Coincidentally, his father was in Vienna on July 23, exactly 69 years ago. It was raining when we went out in the morning, but fortunately as the day progressed it began clearing up. Even more fortunately, because of the overcast skies, today is nice and cool!

目前对维也纳的感受是很典型的一个欧洲城市，城市里有很多有着几百年历史的建筑，公共交通设施发达，地铁，轻轨，大巴都很方便，游客很多。这里似乎有很多雕塑，遍布城市的各个角落，难怪PJG的父亲当年用仅有的一些黑白胶片，拍摄了好几张雕塑的照片。在去我俩要去的第一个雕塑的路上，我俩在Burggarten公园里看到了莫扎特的雕塑。当然了奥地利是很多著名的古典音乐大家的诞生之地，所以看到他们的雕像应该是理所应当的 😀

So far the feeling I get from Vienna is that it is a typical European city: many buildings with hundreds of years of history; excellent public transportation; the subway, light rail and bus are all very convenient and, of course,  there are many tourists. One thing that seems different, is that there seem to be a lot of sculptures here, all over the city. Probably due to the high cost of film in those days, it is no wonder that PJG’s father only took a few black and white photographs of select sculptures. On the way to the first sculpture we visited, we saw a sculpture of Mozart in the Burgarten park. Of course, Austria is the birthplace of many famous classical musician, so it’s not surprising to see  their statues here.

第一个找到的雕塑是德国的伟大作家约翰·沃尔夫冈·冯·歌德的雕塑， PJG父亲当年和朋友在雕塑前膜拜，可惜今天就只有PJG一个人 😂

One of the sculptures we visited was of the great German writer John Wolfgang von Goethe. Probably as a bit of comedy, PJG’s father and his friends kneeled before the sculpture to show how great he was; but today there is only one person praying.

下一站是在维也纳市中心的圣斯德望主教座堂， 该教堂是天主教维也纳总教区的主教座堂。教堂始建于12世纪，初建时为罗马式风格，后来加两座塔楼，南塔的尖顶为哥特式风格，北塔为文艺复兴风格。再后来经过18世纪再次扩建和二战后的修复，使这座教堂成为一座独特的混合风格建筑。哈布斯堡王室的很多成员也被埋葬在这里。更为惊奇的是，这里的地下墓穴还存放着1735年因黑死病爆发而逝去的上万人的白骨。下面的黑白照片是PJG父亲当年拍的，和今天看到的相比，可以看到一部分的房顶当年正在改建进行时。

The next stop was St. Stephen’s Cathedral in the heart of Vienna, the cathedral of the Catholic Diocese of Vienna. The church was built in the 12th century and was originally built in the Romanesque style. Later, two towers were added. The steeple of the South Tower is Gothic and the North Tower is Renaissance. Then later, after another 18th century expansion and restoration after World War II, the church became a unique mixed architectural style building. Many members of the highly influential Habsburg royal family were also buried here. Even more amazing is that the catacombs below the church store the bones of tens of thousands of people who died from the Black Death in 1735. The black and white photo below was taken by PJG’s father in 1949. Compared with today, you can see that the roofs were being rebuilt in that year.

在下一站约翰·施特劳斯的雕塑，同样下面的黑白照片是PJG父亲拍摄的，他很奇怪，不经常拍人，所以很多照片就只是景色。黑白照片上根本看不出来约翰·施特劳斯是金色的雕塑。

At our next stop, we see Johan Strauss’s sculpture, the same black and white photo below was taken by PJG’s father. Unfortunately, for some odd reason, his father didn’t often include people in his photos, mostly just scenery. Also, in the black and white photo below, you wouldn’t have known that the musician was painted in bright gold.

再继续前行是查理教堂，这座巴洛克式教堂建于1737年。PJG父亲在他当年的旅游日记中写到教堂前的那部分非常难看。我俩猜测他也许指的是那两个刻有浅浮雕的圆柱，我也觉得怎么看都觉得不搭调。

Moving on, we came to Karlkirche, a baroque church built in 1737. PJG’s father wrote in  his travel diary that it was, “an annoyingly ugly thing outside. Nice inside.” We both speculated that he might have been referring to the two towers that seemed to be an after-thought; I also felt that it wasn’t too good looking 😂.

离开查理教堂，我俩坐地铁去了美泉宫。这是一座巴洛克风格建筑和花园曾是神圣罗马帝国、奥地利帝国、奥匈帝国和哈布斯堡王朝家族的皇宫。奥地利女皇玛丽娅·特蕾西娅于1743年下令建造这个气势辉煌的美泉宫和花园，总面积2.6万平方米，仅次于法国的凡尔赛宫。1996年美泉宫和皇宫花园以及其巴洛克艺术建筑被联合国教科文组织选入世界遗产名录。

Leaving Karlskirch, we took the subway to the amazing Schönbrunn Palace. This is a Baroque building and massive gardens that was once the royal palace of the Holy Roman Empire, the Austrian Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Habsburg dynasty. The Austrian Empress Maria Theresia ordered the construction of this magnificent Palace and gardens in 1743, covering an area of 26,000sqm, second only to the French Palace of Versailles. In 1996, the Schönbrunn Palace and Gardens and its baroque art buildings were all listed by UNESCO as World Heritage Sites.

PJG的父亲的朋友当年在宫殿外广场里的狮子像上拍的照片，PJG花了好久才追踪查找出来这个狮子像是出自美泉宫。

PJG’s father’s friend climbed on the lion statue in the square outside the palace. PJG took a long time to track down and find out that this particular lion was from Schönbrunn Palace.

PJG父亲和朋友们当年在美泉宫拍了好几张照片，我俩并不打算进去花个半天时间参观庞大的宫殿内部，但整个皇宫花园是免费的，我俩便可以争取找到同一个地点拍下一样的照片，可惜69年过去了，宫殿本身没有多少变化，但是在管理上或多或少都会有些改变。从下面的照片对比中就可以看出。

PJG’s father and friends took several photos at Schönbrunn Palace and remarked that he had visited 45 rooms. We didn’t plan to spend half a day visiting the huge palace interior, but the entire palace garden was free, and was an amazing place to explore. We found many of the same locations from the 69 year old photos and although the palace itself hasn’t changed much, there were some changes in some of the buildings. You can see this from the comparison of the photos below.

在凯旋门观景台上看美泉宫和皇宫花园。PJG觉得下面这张黑白照片是他父亲登上了凯旋门拍的，所以我俩也买了票登了上去，结果景色还真美，还可以看到维也纳的全景。

Next, we went to see the Schönbrunn Palace and the Palace Gardens view from the top roof of the Gloriette. PJG thinks that the black and white photo below was taken by his father from there, so we bought a ticket and climbed the stairs to the top. It really was a beautiful sight from here, and we can also see a great panoramic view of Vienna.

最后一站是红军英雄纪念碑。这座纪念碑建于1945年，是纪念在第二次世界大战的维也纳战斗中阵亡的17000名苏联士兵。

The last stop for today is at the Heroes of the Red Army Monument. The monument was built in 1945 to commemorate the 17,000 Soviet soldiers killed in Vienna during the Second World War.

今天度过了很幸运的一天，要找的几个地方都找到了，而且都没有被维修遮挡住等，留下了很珍贵的照片留念。他父亲到过的地方我俩很难在两天的时间里都探访到，在一路探寻之中，我俩也领略了维也纳的城市景色，典型的欧洲城市拥有众多的哥特式、巴洛克式、文艺复兴式等风格的建筑，教堂、城堡见证着城市的历史和发展，绿化很好，有很多的公园散布在城市的各个角落里，众多的音乐家的雕塑和满街的穿着古典服饰的卖音乐会门票的帅哥们，时刻提醒着你这座城市的丰厚的音乐历史背景。

We had good luck today finding the places in the old precious photos and not finding the buildings covered by maintenance. Given that we were only here for two days, we only saw a small slice of the places PJG’s father had seen on his visit. But, in the course of our exploration, we also experienced city views of Vienna; many typical European Gothic and Baroque buildings; and the many parks scattered throughout the city. The sculptures of the many musicians and the handsome guys wearing costumes selling concert tickets are a constant reminder of the city’s rich musical history background.