Mozart's Worlds!!: Day 15 (Sun.) The Hofburg Silver and Apartments

Sunday was laid back. I worked on this blog and then decided to ride the tram and get off wherever I felt like going. Turns out I went back to the Hofburg Palace because a couple days prior, I had picked up a souvenir map. A very nice map. Too bad it was in Italian. So, I went back to that gift shop to exchange it for the English version.
It was a very cool, rainy, blustery day so heading to a museum was a good idea. I ended up at the Imperial Silver Collection and Apartments. There was an audio guide that brought you through the exhibits. The tour started out in the Emperor's kitchen area and displayed all of their fine china and silverware. It was remarkable how much dinnerware the families owned. A lot was for show and large dinner parties. Very impressive!
The tour then brings you through the next area which is a preserved apartment housing for the Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife, Elizabeth (a.k.a. Sisi). She was revered by the Austrians and reminded me of Princess Diana because of the infatuation the nation had with her. She also hated the limelight and shied away from anything but her absolutely necessary royal duties. The museum in her honor chronicled her life. She was young and beautiful with hair down to her ankles. After her marriage to the Emperor, she pulled away from public view and in her mature years, after the death of their son, she wore black most of the time and wrote very depressing poetry. She was assassinated with a file. They had some of her clothing and the actual file that killed her. The apartments showcased how the nobility lived with elaborate decorations and furniture. They ruled in the latter part of the 1800s. They didn't allow pictures in the apartments, however I did purchase a book with the desciptions.

I then walked around old Vienna for a while by myself looking for a cafe for dinner. I went into St. Michael's Church, which I've been by many times but never stopped in. I think this is my favorite of all the churches I've seen so far. This is one of the oldest churches with parts of it dating back to the 1100s! There are certain doors and areas that are older than others. I think the age and the simplicity of the interior is what I like best about it. Many of the frescoes are rubbed off giving it a very genuine aesthetic. I believe this is where Mozart baptized two of his children and one of his pieces was performed.

I then ended up eating at a great Cafe called Frauenhauber, a place where both Mozart and Beethoven performed!