Why Couldn’t Mozart Find his Piano Teacher? He was Haydn.

Although I was not ready to leave Venice, I thought that Vienna was a very pretty and sophisticated city. The activities that the school planned in Vienna were my absolute favorite and I learned a lot more about the history and culture of Vienna.

The Schonbrunn Palace complemented with the audio guide was absolutely fantastic. Not only did the audio guide allow me to go at my own pace, but in each room, I learned at least three interesting pieces of information about Vienna or the royal family. Some of the highlights of the room visits for me included seeing the room where the young Mozart performed, visiting the room where Kennedy met with Khrushchev, hearing the tales about Marie Antoinette, and listening to the explanations of the different decorations in the rooms. The extra ten minutes that we were allotted for the tour made a grand difference and some of my favorite rooms were in this “extra” tour session.

After the tour, a few of us wanted to explore the gardens. It was fun to imagine members of the royal family walking around in the garden in the same spaces that we were walking- the gardens definitely have a sense of grandeur and splendor. We walked to the top of the hill and had a spectacular view of the palace. The day was pretty busy with the visits to the churches and palace; it was nice to reflect on what I had learned that day.

My other favorite activity was our visit to the Kunsthistorisches Museum. The audio guides were a huge help for me and the even the first descriptions about the architecture and history of the building proved to be fascinating. When I finally arrived at the art gallery, it was a bit overwhelming how many pieces of art were available for the audio guide commentary. I eventually had to learn to pick and choose which art pieces I wanted to learn more about. My favorite piece of information that I learned was about “Paragone.” Paragone is an artistic argument that occurred in the 16^th century; painters attempted to show their dominance over sculptors (they believed sculptors were not in tune with nature, unlike painters).

I also enjoyed the Egypt collection contributed by Austrian archaeologists. The audio guides were also helpful during this section and each room was dedicated to a different section of ancient Egyptian history. My favorite audio guide sections were the explanations of the sphinx and the hippo in Egyptian culture. Hippos were actually seen as cruel creatures, while the sphinx had no negative connotations (this differs from the Greek ideas on the sphinx).

I am glad that I was able to spend more time at this museum because of the information available through the labels and the audio guide. Of course, I could have spent the whole day at the museum, but I am happy with the provided information and have added the Kunsthistorisches Museum to my list of “museums to visit again.”