A big day!

A big day today. We walked for hours through the Innere Stadt (the old center of the city). Today was a "Lucas" day, which meant that he got the honor of picking the main events of the day. Above all else, he wanted to go down into the catacombs of the St. Stephans Cathedral (Stephansdom) and "see all the bones!!!". So we did. Deep, deep under the city, where there are perhaps the bones of 10,000 people, mostly victims of the last Black Plague, in 1713. Vienna figured out it need to move the cemeteries out into the country soon after that. Before they came to that realization though, they came up with a version of the chain gang.... to make room for the newly dead ("BRING OUT YOUR DEAD..."), convicts were forced to take the previously buried people out of their graves, break up the skeletons, clean them, and place them in huge, underground bone piles... At this point in the lecture, Ben whispered to me, "Hi, honey, I'm home." "How was your day?" "Oh, the usual, dig up bodies, clean 'em, crack 'em, throw 'em in a pile...." Lucas said, "I woudn't want THAT job...")

We also climbed the narrow, 342 step, 500 year old stairwell to the top of the north tower, which of course, had a freaking gift shop at the top.... We didn't buy the Pope Benedict Postcards.

Also on the docket was a trip to the Mozart Haus. The only surviving building that Mozart actually lived in. IT's a great place to visit. I bought a t-shirt, Lucas bought a fan.... I'll post a photo from there in the next post.

These pictures: 1) the family in front of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. 2) Lucas on one of the winding, narrow streets of the Innere Stadt. 3) Mahler. He's everywhere! More soon, thanks for stopping by. Jack