Saturday, May 9, 2009

The Hofburg




The former city residence of the Hapsburg family, the rulers of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. I couldn't get over the impression that the Austrians seemed to really regret the end of the monarchy. The wife of the last emperor (and therefore the last empress in her own right) recieved an enormous state funeral back in the 1980s and the imperial china is still used for state banquets.








2 comments:

BlondeInFrance said...

Who wouldn't regret the end of a monarchy?? No annoying campaign ads or smear campaigns, a person raised from childhood to be the best ruler possible, plus all the glamorous balls and stuff.

Definitely born in the wrong century, sigh.

au soleil levant said...

All that money wasted on glamorous balls, fancy china, clothes, fancy military units...

I think a monarchy is a nice symbol of a country, but as I was walking through the china museum of the Hofburg, I couldn't help thinking about how many people could have been fed or housed with the money used to make such useless table accessories.

But I'd probably be totally geeked to be invited to one of those balls :)