What a day! Today’s trip to Klosterneuburg was amazing. The trip was filled with discovery and excitement. Not necessarily the type of feelings I would associate with church, but today was a day of broken stereotypes and new found wisdom.
The plan for today was; First make it to Klosterneuburg, Second take a wine tour, and finally receive a tour of the Abbey by a Catholic Canon. Which is considered a great privilege because Canons are considered reclusive. In order to get to Klosterneuburg the class had to take the Vienna metro or the Ubahn and then take a public bus to Klosterneuburg itself. Today was the first time we had to use the bus system. I was a little afraid that the bus system would be like the ones in the US, unreliable and slow but in actuality the bus system in Austria is great. They arrive on time and are a great way to travel if you don’t have a car or don’t want to drive. The underground system in Vienna is also amazing. Most of the time train cars arrive every four minutes (It depends on the time of day. At night they run every eight minutes.) The trains themselves in the underground system are clean and comfortable. It is easy to understand where they go and what stop you are at. It is a very comprehensive system and you can go almost anywhere in the city with it. Vienna’s public transportation system is one of the best. It is what a public transportation system should be like. It makes me sad that the West coast doesn’t have a transport system like Vienna.
Klosterneuberg is 10 km north of Vienna. Before the Danube river was controlled Klosterneuberg used to be a very important water crossing. Archeologist have found remains of a human settlement there dating back to the late Stone age. In the first century a.d. the Romans built a fortress there because of its strategic significant. The Abbey has a legend about its foundation. It is believed that Margrave Leopold III of Austria was standing on his balcony with his wife on their wedding day when a sudden gust of wind blew his wife’s veil away. Only nine years later while he was out hunting did he find the veil in a elder bush. Once he retrieved the veil the virgin mary came down to him and said build a monastery on this spot to honor her. The church was consecrated on September 29, 1136 after twenty two years of construction. The Abbey as we see it today did not take its present form until Charles VI in 1730, the father of Maria Theresia wanted to create a residence for him that rivaled the Spanish Escorial. By the time of his death, in 1740 Charles VI only completed the north and east wing of the huge construction project. His successor Maria Theresa halted construction preferring the Palace of Schonbrunn. A picture of the founding of the church.
The first part of the tour was the tour of the winery. Klosterneuberg has a large amount of land at its disposal on which it grows wine grapes. Deep underground it has its wine operations. It has a huge underground labyrinth of tunnels where wine barrels of all different sizes are filled, stored and bottled. The walls of the tunnels are meters thick with little air vents to keep the tunnels ventilated and cool. Down in the tunnels the smell of wine was everywhere and it was obvious that the tradition of making wine in this abbey was hundreds of years old. Our tour guide was a middle aged lady whose english wasn’t great but was good enough. I thought the wine tour was very impressive.
Probably the best part of the day was the tour with the Augustinian Canon. Prior to this trip I though most Catholic priests were dull thick headed old men but Father Clemens really turned my image of a Catholic priest around. (or at least the Catholic Canons) Our priest was originally from New York and decided to join this abbey because he was very religious and this abbey’s views fit his own. He was energetic, silly and over all a great tour guide. He knew is history and wasn’t afraid to say he was unsure when he couldn’t remember exact details. I even caught him using his black berry at one point.
The best part of the trip was being let in to the Verdun Altar room. The priceless Verdun Altar is a masterpiece made up of 51 tablets which are made out of enameled and gilded tablets worked in the “sunk enamel or champleve” technic. It was made by Nikolaus of Verdun in 1181 by the order of the provost Wernher. The tablets depict stories from both the old and the new testament in a form called Typology. Typology is a form of interpretation of the New and Old Testament in which events from the Old testament forewarn and reinforce idea in the New Testament. It was a great privilege and honor to be allowed that close to such a priceless and world renowned artifact.
After the day of revelations the class with Father Clemens proceeded to eat and drink at a wine bar. Needless to say the night was long and filled with fun. (over 27 bottles of Gruner Veltliner were consumed!) This is one day I won’t forget!
No comments:
Post a Comment