Hannah's RYE year in Switzerland: Vienna

Austria has a population of 8m and is famous for the 'Sound of Music’. During WW2, 1/3 of Vienna was destroyed by bombs. For our tour we began in the garden of a palace. There were several Greek statues and was once home to Marie Antoinette. Her family lived here for some time before she went to marry the King of France to secure the treaty. Today the palace is used only for parties. Austria is also famous for the Vienna Philharmonics. We then walked through the Rose Garden of which there was a statue of Elisabeth (1820 - 1898). In 1880 the City Hall was built in a gothic style. There is a statue of a horse on his back legs, which is extremely difficult to create and balance correctly. In 1856 the City walls were removed so that the King had the chance to flee. The city hall has over 2600 rooms including the presidential room. It is the conservatives against the activists. The Bibliothek has over 200,000 books and there was a house for 600 horses. We went to Mozart's House. This was very interesting as I wasn't aware of anything related to his private life. He was a gambler which is believed to be where all his fortune went. Mozart was a free mason and had 3 famous plays. He said "my wish and hope is to have honour fame and wealth." His full name was Wolfgang Anadeus Mozart and said it is "the heart that ennobles people.” After our tour of his house we went on a carriage ride through the streets of Vienna as if in the olden days. It was so hot and there was so way of shading ourselves on these carriages. I did feel like royalty though, other tourists were taking pictures of us and it was such a cool time. We went back to the hotel for dinner, some people went to an optional opera, but my friends and I didn't go (Dan if you are reading this I’m sorry).