Some churches are decked out in gold, and you say, hey, this is nice, but there is a lot of gold. Some churches are decked out in icons, and you say, hey, this is nice, but there are a lot of icons. I’ve even heard of churches decked out in mosaics, and you say, hey, this is nice, but man, there are a lot of tiles. Then you have churches that are just right. Not too much gold, not too many icons, maybe no mosaics at all, with altars and buttresses in all the right places that make you lift your eyes to the heavens and fall to your knees and say yes! This is it!
Now, given the fact that I couldn’t even remember the difference between baroque and gothic architecture before last night’s emergency Googling, I am seriously not one to talk about architecture, let alone church architecture. But here I will talk anyway and say today I fell in love with St. Peter’s church in Vienna. Modeled after St. Peter’s basilica in Rome, owned and being renovated at present by Opus Dei, the only church in Vienna not facing East, and the most beautiful place in the world, I could really talk for hours about how much I just want to go back inside and stare at the walls and wish I lived there. But I will not, because there is an entire city outside of this church.
Outside of St. Peter’s, which is definitely not the tallest, most influential, or easily found landmark, there is a little town you might have heard of called Vienna. For such a busy place, Vienna is rather quiet. For a place its size, it has more than its fair enormous churches…and for all the history it holds, it lacks nothing modern.
It was humbling to see a city that has been shaped by so many centuries of baggage. Granted, so much of Europe has been on the same wagon of Turks, Jews, and Christians running around and fighting each other all the time, but every generation that has lived in Vienna, every war that has been fought on its soil, and every dynasty that has ruled over its people, has molded together and transformed Vienna into what it is: incredibly diverse, fearsome, and absolutely overwhelming. What you might call history’s melting pot. I definitely gained an appreciation for European history, as well as every one of my history professors (and…my mom) who ever attempted to tell me how important it is that we study the people, places, and events that shaped our culture.
After running into hundreds of people dressed like Mozart, almost crashing a wedding, exploring a few more churches (that’s not difficult, considering they are…everywhere), and tasting the most incredible café latte macchiato known to man, we made our way outside the touristy Vienna towards an open air market. What we found there was the people’s Vienna, the one with the nagging vendors, the scraggly old men, the drinkers, the smokers, the Italians (yes, where did they come from?) and the awkwardly placed Chinese restaurants. Vienna, you must understand, has everything.
But everything aside, St. Peter’s was my favorite stop in Vienna. That…and maybe the latte.
