End of summer vacation, Part I

So we're back from a tour of Austria, Switzerland and Italy just in time to start teaching again. The start of the school year has us in a bit of a flurry, trying to get everything ready, but I'll try to get recaps of our adventures up as soon as possible.
We left Prague with my parents for Vienna on a Friday mid-morning and arrived mid-afternoon. We found our hotel and then walked through the centre of Vienna's ring to the Opera House. The ring is the heart of old Vienna and has most of the main attractions in or on it. We spent almost all of our time in the ring.
Walking in through it let us get a view of the Viennese architecture, which I had heard was a highlight of the city. We also got to the opera house in time to find out there was a concert there that night. It wasn't actually the opera, because it was still summer and the company was on tour or vacation, but highlights of Mozart would be played. We all wanted to see the inside of the building and decided that would be a good way. It was worth it, as the building is very much what I'd picture a classical European opera house would be, and the concert was both well-played and fun (the conductor made a point of including the crowd and had great showmanship).
For most of the next two days we explored the remnants of the Hapsburg Empire. Saturday we toured through a museum dedicated to Elizabeth, the apparently nutty wife of Emperor Franz Josef, who ruled from 1848-1916. Her museum led us into the royal apartments, which showed how one of the most powerful families in European history lived. The apartments didn't have too much gaudy decoration, I thought, and Chelsey certainly wasn't impressed that they kept the rooms at 57 degrees Fahrenheit, but they were definitely luxurious. Apparently the Empress had a whole day every week when she did nothing but wash her hair. Unfortunately, we don't have pictures of either of those things, because photographs were prohibited.
The next day we went through the royal treasury, which is where the Hapsburgs stashed all their opulence. It was pretty amazing what they managed to collect. There were several bejewelled crowns - again, pretty much exactly what you think of when you think of a medieval crown.
Our other stop in Vienna was at the Music Museum. This was a pretty neat museum, which had some fun things in it, like composing a symphony by rolling dice. There were individual rooms for several major composers, which was interesting until we got to ones I had never heard of. There was also an interactive display where you could become the conductor of the Vienna Philharmonic. This was a golden opportunity for Dad, who's always conducting the music, but the on-screen musicians soon grew tired of his conducting.
Next we were off to Salzburg, which I guess I'll recap in the next blog post so this one doesn't get too long. And Chelsey is working hard at getting pictures and captions up on her Picassa site. The Vienna pictures are up and ready and the rest will be coming as soon as she can get them done.
-Jason