Return to Vienna, and Following Adventures

The weekend after our pilgrimage to Poland, I wanted to get out somewhere, but I didn't feel like taking a big trip.  So I joined a group of friends for a day-trip to Vienna.  We got there early in the morning and wandered the city for a little while until the Royal Treasury opened.  

The treasury contains many precious items, not only clothes and belongings of kings but also many, many relics!  It was so awesome to see all of these things.  :) 

Gryffindor! ;)

I almost missed this room, so many many thanks to Tanya for making sure I didn't.  

There are LOTS of amazing artifacts in the treasury, so I will only share a few so as not to take up lots of space and make the post hard to read because half the pictures won't show up.  

This first one is a tabernacle containing a relic of the true Cross.  

This is a reliquary for another relic of the True Cross.  

This one was my favorite.  It holds one of the nails that pierced the sacred hands of Jesus Christ.  How incredible that we still have this treasure: the nail that pierced the hand of God, freely offered to show His love for us.  

I also really liked this monstrance.  :) 

This was really awesome: there is a shelf of reliquaries, each containing a relic of one of the twelve apostles!  

Relics of St. John the Evangelist, St. Thomas, and St. Jude Thaddeus.  

A relic of St. Anne!

There was also a display of numerous relics of Christ.  This is a reliquary containing a large fragment of the True Cross.

This is the holy lance that pierced the side of Christ on the Cross.  

Finally, this is a collection of numerous relics.  The first is a piece of the tablecloth from the Last Supper,

 then, on the right side of the picture is a reliquary containing a fragment of Jesus' loincloth.  The reliquary in the center contains a tooth of St. John the Baptist.  There is much more to see within the museum, but it would take quite a bit of space to do it justice, so I'll leave it there.

After our visit to the treasury, we returned to the Michaelkirche, one of my favorite churches among those we've seen while we've been here.  

We also went through the Spanish Riding School (at the request of guess who? yes, me).  They passed through with the horses as we were coming through!! They are so beautiful!  

The rest of the afternoon was spent having tea in a cafe, doing a Holy Hour in Stephansdom, exploring the Naschmarkt and shopping, and people-watching in Stephansplatz.  It was a nice, relaxed day out.  

I wanted to go out on a hike the next day to catch a sunrise.  But I felt bad about waking up the girl who was going to go with me, so I decided to stick close to the Kartause and watch it from here.  

It was cloudy that morning, so the sunrise wasn't really visible, but it was fun to watch the early morning light spread.  I also saw the bus head out to Vienna to meet the parents coming for Parents' Weekend.  

Well, things got a little interesting after that.  I decided I should go further up the hill behind the Kartause in order to see the sunrise better.  I was going up, and it was going well, when all of the sudden, I heard this quite terrifying sound!  It sounded like a low growl, followed by a moaning sound.  I froze.  I thought to myself, "That was definitely real.  Something alive is out there."  Not wanting to give it a chance to think about it's next move, I made mine and ran down the hill to where I had been standing before.  YIPE!  

When I told others about it later, I thought perhaps it had been a dog or a bear.  But people were doubtful, so I decided to go looking for what sort of animal it could have been.  I searched for what kinds of wild animals live in Austria.  One of the results was wild boar.  I thought casually, I wonder what that sounds like.  So I went looking for noises that a wild boar makes.  If you want to understand the terror that hearing this noise in the woods and not knowing what it was would cause, listen to the first sound in the following link: What was that?

Yup.  I nearly encountered a wild boar in the mountains of Austria!!  

Later that day, some friends and I made the hike to the very top of Book Mountain to put our names in the notorious book.  :) 

Photo credited to Bernadette Scott.

 
(Above photos credited to Bernadette Scott).

After much walking and heavy breathing and tired muscles and sore feet, we made it to the top and penned our names in the book.  :) I forgot to take a picture of what I wrote, so if you are ever in Gaming, Austria you'll have to go find out yourself. :) 

I also carved my initials in the tree up there.  (RM, and that's a sword next to it.)  It's not very fancy, but, mind you, it was done with a rock because we didn't have a knife.  :) 

And so, another adventure ensued, was embraced, and was conquered all within a good day's work.  

God bless you all!