We are at gate B34 at Vienna Airport waiting for our flight home to Rome on Alitalia. The neat thing about this airport is that the internet access is FREE. We had a wonderful time and now we want to go home. Tomorrow morning I go pick-up Nicky and Nora at the farm. They are apparently doing well visiting with family in the countryside. Very impressed with the service in Austria and the country as a whole, we always enjoy our visits here. Luckily this is a short flight 90 minutes to Rome.
The weather throughout the vacation was a little uncertain, today per example we had hot and humid and windy and cold all day, on and off, sunny and dark clouds. No wonder people catch colds, you do not know how to dress from hour to hour.
On our last day we went to visit the Belvedere Palace in Vienna,in fact 2 palaces the upper and lower belvedere, once the Residence of Prince Eugene of Savoie-Carignan,a French noble at the service of the Hapsburg, his feat, he stopped once and for all the Turks at the gates of Vienna 1683 in a decisive battle with the help of King John Sobieski III of Poland. Thus he became a national hero in Austria and a European hero, the Pope called him at the time the Savior of Christianity. He was also notoriously gay. Had he not succeeded we would live today in a different world, less Christian and more Muslim. Prince Eugene was also a man of the Baroque age, a philosopher, an art collector and a great Statesman. This special exhibit on his life which is on until 6 June 2010 is well worth seeing. The Belvedere Palace today houses a beautiful painting collection of Monet and Manet and many other German and Austrian painters.
On his death in 1736, Prince Eugene only had one heir, a cousin, Princess Victoria, who was short, fat with beedy little black eyes and very miserly. She sold the contents of his art collection to her cousin the King of Savoie-Piedmont and the art collection ended up in his palace in Torino. If you visit Italy today you can see the collection there. The Savoie became the Royal Family of Italy in 1860.
Prince Eugene also had a menagerie of exotic animals and Princess Victoria sold off the animals to hunters for fancy hunting parties. The Emperor of Austria was a little scandalized by the attitude of Princess Victoria and society in general was disapproving of her doings, but she was the legal heir so she could do as she pleased. It is said that after the death of Prince Eugene the Austrian state started its long descent, there really was no one quite like him as a Statesman, Diplomat and Soldier.
Finally Rome Fiumicino airport, on time on a Wednesday evening, how to we know we arrived, simple as we step down from the plane unto the tarmac to take the bus which will ferry us to the terminal building, I note how driving along the runways in Rome Airport is a bit like Formula One, speeding is common, as we arrive at the terminal building, a Alitalia service vehicle is illegally parked blocking our access to the terminal door. Which other airport in the would have vehicle parked illegally.
Home sweet home.
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