Day 14--Travel to Vienna

Day 14 was actually the roughest day of our trip--emotionally. We left Hallstadt and drove through the beautiful Austrian country side to Mauthausen, a WWII concentration camp where several hundred thousand prisoners died during the Nazi occupation of Austria. We watched a video about the camp first, and then went to the barracks area where David broke down crying because of the horrible feelings in the place. Then afterwards we walked along the outside area and looked at different monuments erected by countries whose Jews had been killed in Mauthausen. There is a very steep stairway where the prisoners used to have to carry rocks up from the quarry. Over 180 steps, many of them uneven in both slant and rise, caused the deaths of many men because of their sheer exhaustion while they were carrying over 40 pounds of rocks on their backs. I took no pictures here because I was simply too overwhelmed and sickened to do so. David took a few, but instead of sharing these, I will link to the Mauthausen wiki site so that you can learn more about this concentration camp if you are interested.

After the camp, we went as a group to lunch at a roadside cafeteria. I don't know if it was my mood or the food, but I didn't eat anything.

Then on to Vienna for a very weird transition into the glory and beauty of the Hapsburgs--Schonnbrun Palace. Modeled after Versailles, this palace was the summer residence of the Hapsburgs. It is fully furnished inside with tributes to the different family members of the Hapsburgs of note. No photos inside, so all the pics I have are of the lovely exterior of the building and the gardens, which were phenomenal. I loved the rose garden because everything was in bloom (unlike Baden-Baden) and it smelled heavenly.

We checked into our hotel and then were on our own for the rest of the evening. After settling in, David and I decided on a recommended Italian place not too far from our hotel where David had pizza in the spirit of the Italian flag (in honor of the European soccer championship that was going on while we were in Europe). It was red, green and white striped and looked like the Italian flag in pizza form. Really wonderful too. Then we looked around this pedestrian mall area and finally went back to our hotel to unwind from a very emotionally stressful day. It was still hot.