Vienna

We stopped Vienna since it was on our way to Germany, and we had to sleep SOMEWHERE. We wanted to see the city, too, but unfortunately by the time we got to the train station to stash our backpacks, figured out when and where our train would be leaving from, and took the metro to city center, we only had 4 hours to see the city! We spent our time in the Hofberg palace, where Austria's ruling family the Hapsburgs lived and worked for centuries.

Here's a brief wikipedia history on the Hapsburgs for you:
"The House of Habsburg, often Anglicised as Hapsburg and sometimes referred to as the House of Austria, was one of the most important royal houses of Europe and is best known for being an origin of all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1438 and 1740, as well as rulers of the Austrian and Spanish Empires and several other countries. Originally from Switzerland, the dynasty first reigned in Austria, which they ruled for over six centuries. A series of dynastic marriages brought Burgundy, Spain, Bohemia, Hungary, and other territories into the inheritance. In the 16th century the family separated into the senior Habsburg Spain and the junior Habsburg Austrian branches, who settled their mutual claims in the Oñate treaty."

We looked at the Imperial Apartments, which were of course opulently furnished, and the Sisi Museum, which explores the life of the famous/infamous Sisi, or Elisabeth of Bavaria, who was sort of a Princess Diana of the 19th Century and was assassinated in 1898.

After that we went to the Royal Treasury, which had all sorts of ridiculously expensive and impressive things.

The world's biggest cut emerald, 2,680 carats:


Agate bowl, carved from one piece of agate. Wiki history: "From the 17th to the 20th century, there were descriptions of an inscription "B.XRISTO.RI.XXPP", which was seen as a reference to Jesus Christ. Since the writing seemed to be neither painted nor carved in the bowl, but to appear in the natural veining of the stone itself, the Agate bowl was regarded a relic. It was even considered to be the Holy Grail.":


A unicorn horn!! Okay so actually it's a narwhal tusk:


A nail from Jesus' cross:


After that we didn't have time for anything else except to grab some groceries to supplement our stolen hostel lunch, and we headed to the train for Prague!

We arrived in Prague at about 7:30 at night, and walked about a mile to our hostel. Once inside, we met our roommates...who were amazing. They were 4 Swedish girls traveling together, who almost immediately invited us to go out with them. Of course we accepted...more details in the next post!

Hostel review:
We stayed at HI Hostel Advantage in Prague.Pretty close to everything, we only took the metro once and it was because we didn't want to have to walk with our backpacks. The wifi was free and unlimited - even using THEIR computers was free and unlimited! Breakfast was good and plentiful...especially if you got there first. Our room was VERY hot, but that is true of most hostels. The place was clean and had a kitchen we could use for cooking, complete with dishes. The main and maybe only problem with this hostel was that our room had 6 beds and only 5 lockers...in every hostel, we lock our things up because we don't know our roommates, or what kind of security the building has. Kim and I had to share a locker, which means we were only able to lock up our valuables, which was annoying.I tried to talk to the manager of the hostel about it, and he said he would get back to me, and never did.