September 6-7, 2024
Miles: 23.55; Total: 6,591
After a short ride along the Danube, we arrived in Vienna. The bike path led us past miles of grafitti murals, which, though fantastic, were not what I was expecting to see in a city I had envisioned as a giant fancy wedding cake.
The cake came soon enough. Howard and I stopped for a sublime organ concert in St. Peter's Cathedral. I've never seen such a blinged-out place of worship. Even the two mummified saints flanking the pulpit were bedazzled.
The interior of St. Stephen's was less glitzy, but the exterior, featuring its patterned tile roof, gave all the other Gothic structures in Europe a run for their money.
Although I'm a sucker for medieval cities, and Vienna is among the finest, what I loved the most about Vienna was its large rivers of happy people speaking so many different languages. As I walked through the main shopping street, I just let the river wash over me. It felt like a kind of home.
Another kind of home was meeting my old boss Anja and her husband, Cole, for dinner. Another beloved boss, David Weir, once said to me, "Alana, you are unmanageable." So kudos to Anja for managing me so well at Google that I stayed about a year past the time I wanted to scoot.
After dinner, Anja and Cole took me for a night tour of Vienna's incredibly impressive museums, memorials, and opera house. I felt the paradox I have felt in many other beautiful capitals: the finest art and architecture in the world was produced by three highly problematic instiutions: religion, feudalism, and imperialism. Like all the excellent cake I ate, Vienna itself is a guilty pleasure.
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