One of the best known buildings in Vienna is Stephansdom (St. Stephen’s Cathedral), the mother church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Vienna. You can see the multicolored tiled roof, one of its distinctive features, in the photos below that I took a few nights ago. The cathedral is located in a busy area in the center of the city with surrounding buildings quite close. As a result, you have to get pretty close and shoot upwards to get an unobstructed view and the angles get all skewed.
In a few hours a taxi will bring me to the airport to catch my flight back to the USA. It has been a brief trip to Vienna with most of my daylight hours occupied with work, but I have been fortunate to have the chance to catch some of the beautiful Christmas decorations in the city at nights. I might do another posting or two of Vienna when I return home, but this will almost certainly be my last one that I write in Vienna itself.
Merry Christmas to you all, wherever the holidays happen to find you.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
I was thinking how beautiful it all is, then zoomed in and realised the nice red colour is actually coca-cola bottles (on banners?). How incongruous, even bizarre! Strung up between a fairy tale Christmas Tree and a fairy tale Cathedral. Gobsmacked!!! Hahaha.
I hadn’t noticed the Coke bottles until you pointed them out, Liz. There is a Christmas market to the side of the cathedral, but I am not sure if that is the reason for the banners. They look like advertising to me. (I was a bit shocked to see a giant iPhone 11 banner hanging on one of the exterior walls of the Louvre when I was in Paris last month.)
Beggars belief! Wonderful heritage that I as a NZer am in awe of – surprises me that the authorities allow crass commercialism to intrude. I guess those who live with such heritage all the time just end up taking it for granted!
Nice Mike! Glad you get to travel to interesting places to share with us! Have a safe trip home!
Thanks, Reed. I think that I will be on home turf for the next few months, though retirement gives me enough flexibility to travel without having to plan too far in advance.
Such a feast for the eyes. I hope your return flight is safe and uneventful, Mike. Happy Holidays!
Gorgeous! Merry Christmas to you!
Love Stephansdom and the city center in Vienna. Be sure to check out the Demel Confectionary!
I love Demel’s. In the past I have been there for Hot Chocolate and have brought back gifts from there too. I had a friend that really liked their Langues de Chat and I loved their apple strudel. The ambiance was definitely Old World.
Wonderful!
This is such a beautiful building, Mike.
It is even more amazing to see it in person, Dan, with all of the different towers in addition to that amazing roof. I don’t know all of the details, but some elements of the church date back to the 1300’s.