Today Griffin and I got out of the apartment a little early to go see the morning exercises of the horses in the Spanische Hofreitschule (Spanish Riding School). This school was established by the Habsburgs and is the oldest riding school of its kind in the world. The school is named as such because it only trains Lippizzan horses, a Spanish breed. At the end of the WWII, Patton placed the Spanish Riding School under the protection of the US Army. Patton worked with Austrians to rescue horses and POWs that had fallen into the hands of Germans in Czechoslovakia and were in danger of being seized by the Soviets as they moved in to claim Czechoslovakia after the German surrender. A total of 244 Lippizzaner horses were returned to Austria!

These horses perform in Vienna at the winter palace and offer viewings of some of their training sessions. This is their last week in Vienna before they take 7 weeks off in the summer stables in Lower Austria. We weren’t able to get tickets for a full performance, so we decided to attend a training session, along with a lot of other tourists! It was packed and crazy trying to get in this morning, but the arena started clearing out after about an hour and it was actually quite peaceful watching the horses with classical music in the background. We weren’t allowed to take photos during the event, so I don’t have any to share from that experience. However, we were lucky enough to be walking by the stables after the show and were able to get some great views and pictures of the horses. After a couple of minutes of watching the activity at the stables, we realized that the horses inside were being brought out for exercise and that the horses from the exercises that we viewed were returning to the stables. We had a front row view of this process!

We were also able to get some video!

The Hofburg Palace area is huge and we enjoyed exploring it this morning. These are just some of the areas around the complex.

Griffin and I had lunch near Stephansplatz while we waited to meet up with Curt and his students for a tour of the Kaisergruft (Imperial Crypt) and a visit to Karlskirche (St. Charles’s Church).

The tour of the Imperial Crypt was very interesting because it was guided by one of the staff members from the agency that is helping Berry facilitate the study abroad program in Vienna. The tour guide gave us a lot of history about the crypt itself and about the lineage of the 150 royal family members buried inside the crypt. One of the really interesting things that we learned is that the the hearts of the royal family are kept in Augustinerkirche (the  Augustinian church) and their entrails are kept in a crypt below Stephansdom (St. Stephan’s Cathedral). Although the Habsburg Empire was dismantled during WWI, the members of the royal family remained eligible for burial in the crypt. The Crown Prince, Otto, was 4 when the dynasty lost power and 9 when when his father died and he became the head of the House of Habsburg. Our tour guide told us that the last person that is eligible to be buried here is Yolanda, the wife of Otto’s younger brother, but Otto does have children. I am not sure why his children are not slated to be buried here.

Matthias and Anna: The founders of the Imperial Crypt

The largest sarcophagus belongs to Maria Theresa, the only female ruler of the Habsburgs, and her husband.

Maria Theresa had several daughters that were married to royal families around Europe. Marie Antoinete was her daughter!

A memorial plaque for Archduke Ferdinand and his wife Sophie. She couldn’t be buried in the crypt since she was a commoner, so they are buried together at another location in Austria.

Franz Joseph ruled for 68 years, the longest of anyone in the Habsburg Empire.

This is the sarcophagus of Elizabeth, wife of Franz Joseph. She was very beloved by the people of Austria. She was also a supporter of independence for Hungary and was very popular there. She’s the one that the Elizabeth Bridge in Budapest is named for.

Otto von Habsburg’s sarcophagus

The future site of Yolanda

Our trip to Karlskirche allowed us to view the city from top of the rotunda. The scaffolding was left up in the church after some recent renovation work and visitors are now allowed to climb up to the top! Curt and Griffin have ventured successfully up to the top of the Duomo in Florence, but weren’t able to make it up to the top of this church. Admittedly, in the Duomo, we climbed on very solid concrete steps and we weren’t able to see anything below us since we were climbing around in a spiral staircase. This trip involved a glass elevator for the first portion and then shaky scaffolding for the second portion. Griffin made it halfway up the scaffolding before heading down with some students. Curt made it to the top of the scaffolding, but didn’t stay to enjoy the view; he went back down immediately. I took pictures as best as I could, but the wire covering the windows made it difficult to focus on the city below.

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We returned to our apartment at an early hour to have dinner and watch the Austria v. Hungary game. We didn’t want to watch out in a restaurant or square tonight because we needed to stay close to “home”. Curt had to go help some students with their projects tonight and we were scheduled to use the laundry facilities for 3 hours tonight!