November 1 was All Saints Day, the country’s second national holiday in six days.  And they close almost everything.  Tourists aimlessly wandering the streets just dying to spend money.  So what better way to spend the special day for all of the saints than to visit Karlskirche, a fabulous church that was dedicated to the patron saint of the Plague, St. Charles Borromeo, the once Archbishop of Milan.

This baroque church begins to impress from blocks away because of its 236 feet high dome and dual columns towering over the plaza with scenes celebrating the Plague Saint’s life.  Entering the interior is at first equally impressive with its grandiose High Altar and beautifully decorated mini-domes.  But what a bummer.  The otherwise impressive dome is significantly obstructed by scaffolding.  But when I started to try to photograph the sections of the dome that I could see from the floor, I realized it wasn’t scaffolding at all.  They have installed an elevator and stairs right in the center of the church so that visitors, for a price of course, can get all the way up to the top of the cupola.  Talk about detracting from the elegance of a structure over 250 years old to make a couple of bucks.  We have enjoyed the smaller old churches here so much and to see them willing to compromise the elegance as well as the structure of this building that took 25 years to build was disappointing.

After visiting Karlskirche, we continued on to spend the afternoon at the Belvedere Palaces and Gardens.  The larger palace is now the art museum with the main collection of Gustav Klimt that Konnie was yearning to see.  On our last full day we walked more of the city taking in more of the fabulous buildings and the people.  The beauty of the buildings and plazas here remind me in some ways of the much younger Washington, D.C.

Dinner at Weibels Wirtshaus (http://www.weibel.at/wirtshaus01.html) and Griechenbeisl (http://www.griechenbeisl.at/lang_en/page.asp/index.htm) to wrap up the week in Vienna before heading to Salzburg for four nights.