City hall (10.01.09)

Yesterday we finally visited the Vienna city hall.
There’s a free guided tour at 1 a.m. so we used this opportunity. Actually, I have already been to the city hall, because a reception for foreign students was organized there. But then I only managed to see the ball room and the corridor. What we saw now was even more outstanding…
First the conference room. Quite a small one but richly decorated. There’s a huge chandelier hanging on the ceiling, which weighs several hundred kilos, the walls are decorated with large paintings and windows covered with colourful stained glass.
The next stop was the large banquet room with emblems of all the Austrian Lands on the walls. When we came in, it was being decorated with flowers. And then we went to this part of the building that I already know from the previous visit. Columned hall, stairs with red carpet and finally the ball room. Again we could see people at work, preparing the room for the ball of sport journalists that was to take place in the evening. So the room was really impressive again.
The last room we visited was quite small, with old green fireplace and the paintings of all the previous mayors.



In fact the tour finished quite quickly and maybe the guide did talk about some interesting facts but I was so engrossed in taking photos that I didn’t really listen to her. Well, sometimes it was impossible, because she was speaking too quietly. Doesn’t really matter. Maybe I’ll go there once more and write something more exciting. Oh, and one more thing – the tower is closed for tourists, because it’s too narrow inside. The costs of building it were extremely high, but I don’t remember now how much it was. In fact, the whole building was very expensive - in 14th century the government spent 14 millions Guldens.