Darkness and light in Austria

It's spring break at the castle.  The crofters are all off all over the place...in the Italian countryside with hammocks, hiking in Ireland, enjoying sunny weather in Spain...and we're reliving our younger traveling days with trains and a major city a day (well, or every other day).

We're in Austria, with plans this week for Linz, Vienna, Salzburg, and then to Munich for the weekend.  Those of us on sabbatical aren't actually on break (you can pity me if you like), and are taking the opportunity to do some research.  The reason we choose to head north instead of south for spring break was that I wanted to visit Schloss Hartheim, near Linz.  I'm working on a book on disability and ethics, and Schloss Hartheim is a place with the least ethical history imaginable.  It was the most notorious of six Nazi "euthanasia centers," serving as a killing facility for people with disabilities.  Thirty thousand people lost their lives in the gas chamber at Hartheim.  The castle is pictured above.  It wasn't as big as nearby places like Mauthausen because there were no prisoners to house--it only served as a killing site.

Schloss Hartheim is now a memorial and museum of disability.  The contemporary museum is very good and raises important ethical questions about bioethics, the history of science and social science, eugenics, and current views and policies regarding disability.  A blog post can't really do justice to the power (both terrible and positive) of a place like Hartheim, so I won't say any more than that it was an important place to visit and that I had a very good tour and meeting with one of its administrators.

 The city of Linz is an interesting place, though we only spent a little time there.  The other members of my household enjoyed playing with robots at Ars Electronica, and we had lunch and bought a Linzer torte at a very nice little bakery.  Linz is an interesting mix of old and new.

 Today we're in Vienna, a city I've always wanted to visit.  This is partly because of its influence on wider European culture, and partly because it is home to the Spanish Riding School and its famous white stallion dressage horses.  While the guys went to the Natural History Museum to see the Venus of Willendorf and an ostrich (J thinks ostriches come from Austria, so very fitting), I observed the morning training at the Spanish Riding School.  Being an amateur dressage rider, I was moved by the artistry of the horses and their riders.  While in performances you see all the "airs above the ground," the morning workout is similar in some ways to the Tuesday night lessons I take on my own gelding.  I was gratified to see that they warm up in much same way my friends and I do, that the horses take a few minutes to settle down (I saw a buck or two!), and that the riders seem just as pleased as I do when their horses perform well.  Of course, most of their exercises are way out of my league.

We had lunch in the cafe at the riding school (above).  The structure in the background is a covered mechanical walking arena for the horses.  They were walking around while we had our lunch.  Spinat-knodel and Lippizaners.  What more does one need?

No pictures allowed in the Spanish Riding School, but the horses looked pretty much like the ones on Maria Terese's big statue to herself, except that they were white and alive.  The riders still wear the same hats.

 

We also checked out the Stephansdom.  J likes stained glass, so he enjoyed this cathedral.  Many Viennese buildings are being sandblasted.  Stephansdom is important enough that its scaffolding had a picture of it on the outside so that the cathedral is only kinda-sorta covered up from view.

We spent the rest of our day at Schoenbrunn Palace and its gardens.  I'll post pics from that part of our day later.

Hey crofters:  if it's raining on you in southern Italy and Spain, just look at our sunshine in Vienna!  Austria is a fine place to spend spring break.