flatschoolbudapest
scotland munichvienna
amsterdamblankoldsite

Vienna, Austria
Feb 26-29, 2004

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Next up was the Hundertwasserhaus. The fairy-tale like house opened in March 1986 and has a multicolored facade. It was designed by Austrian artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser as a playful take on usually dull social housing. He wanted to show that practical could also be beautiful. There are 50 apartments in this building, each with individual decoration (on the outside the different designs with ceramic lines are the outlines of the apartments within) and roof gardens. The windows on the building are all different size and shape becuase Hundertwasser believed windows constitute a house's soul.


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The walkways around and in the building are done with uneven lines because Hundertwasser proclaimed that they 'become a symphony, a melody for the feet, and bring back natural vibrations to man'. There is a small shopping area across from the apartment buildings in the same design and these are pictures from the bathroom.

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Saturday, February 27th - We started off at the Spanish Winter Riding School to watch the Lipizzaner stallions go through their exercises. The season starts the beginning of March for the shows and morning exercises are viewable just about year round (except summer when the horses go to Lainzer Tiergarten, west of Vienna, for summer holidays). The Lipizzaner stallions are born dark and when mature are snow white.

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After the stallions we headed over to Zoom Kindermuseum. There were lots of fun things to do in there and the kids tried to get to everything. While I didn't take any pictures there, I did get the kids having another snowball fight in Maria Theresian Platz on the way to the museum quarter.

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After lunch we visited the Schmetterlingshaus (Butterfly House). It's home to more than 150 species of tropical butterflies and moths. The greenhouse type building is designed to replicate their natural environments. From there I took Nora, Lucy and Mackenzie back to the Prater where we went on the bumper cars again, and a few other rides. We went throught the haunted house (ride with cars) and the whole time we could hear Nora and Lucy screaming, when we got out we waited for them and they both had their heads down and eyes closed! Needless to say they didn't want to go back on that one again!         Last morning in Vienna