Vienne

Vienne (or Vienna in English) is the capital, and largest city, of Austria. The famous home of Mozart, Beethoven, and Johann Strauss. It is the birthplace of the waltz and one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.

Or at least I assume it is, I've never actually been there. We didn't go to that Vienne, we went to the Vienne in the suburbs about 20 kilometers outside of Lyon.

This Vienne was awesome too. A much smaller city of less than 30,000 people, it's just an 18 minute train ride from the station near my house. Like Lyon it was founded by the Romans over 2,000 years ago, and has a few interesting, and well preserved, ruins from that time. Like this:



We only spent a day there, but that is probably enough to see what you want to see. There is a really cool Roman history and art museum and a pretty nice castle a few miles outside of town that we missed, but otherwise we saw the big highlights. A couple of really cool churches, the Roman temple above, an old roman amphitheater, and a really nice park (with a pretty good skate park next to it).

One of the cool churches

Like all cities in France, Vienne has a pretty cool church on the hill over looking the city named after Notre Dame (Our Lady). It's not as cool as the one in Lyon or Marseille, but it also has a pretty cool view of the city. If you look on the right hand side of this picture, you will see the remains of the old castle looking over the city.



I also ran into one of the most famous people in France getting her hair cut, so of course I had to interrupt her and get an autograph and a photo!



Actually I have no idea who this person is. Her mother stopped me on the street and asked me to play a joke on her daughter for her 20th birthday. So I ran into the beauty shop telling her how much I loved her last movie and how I really wanted her autograph and a picture. I look like a total dork in this picture, but I thought it was cool, and I hope she did too.

Overall we had a good day. Saw a lot of cool stuff, talked to a few cool people, had a really good italian dinner, and watched some drunk kid puke on the nicely landscaped trees near the train station. They have a roman festival and a jazz festival coming up, so I will probably return for another visit soon.

Anyway, for more pictures of Vienne, check this out.