Vienna

We arrived in Vienna around 9 am off of our train from Florence. Then had to promptly figure lut the subway system. Thankfully only made a small mistake. After we all arrived we took a walking tour of Vienna and walked the Ringstraße. We got to see the Vienna secession house, Wagner's Karlsplatz station, and his Postparkasse building.

Secind day in Vienna we saw the Saint Stephens, and walked by Loos' American bar. After thay we headed to the MAK museum to see 1900 furniture. We stopped ar a Loos bank and went into a library that was beautiful but I am unsire of the name. Lastly we went to the Belvedere and saw a sizeable collection of Gustav Klimpt paintings, all of which were beautiful.

The next day was Budapest, that will be another blog post.

Our last day in Austria we were able to visit the Majolica house by Wagner whuch is gorgeous. It almost seems like a tatoo on the face of the building. We went to Schönbrunn castle afterwards which was more interesting for the history of the Austrian royalty.  Our last architectural stop of the day was the Kirche am Steinhof by Otto Wagner. It was simply gorgeous. Inside and out. Definitely worth the trip all the way uphill. Had Wienerschnitzel and chocolate mousse for dinner to end the night.

Budapest

Budapest day began and ended with three hours of trains.

Right after the train we climbed up a very large hill. It had some great views of Budapest. We then trekked to an Art Nouveau "museum" that felt like somebody's grandma's basement. It was odd. One of the budapest subway lines, one of the oldest in Europe is extremely shallow, basically directly under the road. We rode subway to the museum of fine arts in budapest but did not slend very much time there. Then the fun part of the day. We got to go to the baths- basically a giant spa. And I got to enjoy the thermal pools and steam room before the train back.

Florence

Florence is the only city in Italy we had enough time to visit. And thankfully I'm positive we picked the right one. It has one of my favorite things of all time- the duomo. The dome Brunelleschi designed and directed construction on over Santa Maria del Fiore. Which is gorgeous and right next to St. John's baptsitry and Alberti's baptsitry doors. The first night we relaxed by our hostel pool, got some amazing Italian food. And then went to look at the duomo at night.

Our second day we walked all 462 steps to the top of the duomo. Worth it. After the duomo we went to a market and I ate half a chicken. It was delicious and only €6 with fries. That night we met up with another group in Florence and had more Italian food followed by gellato. Then there was a creepy Charlie Chaplin impersonator we watched for a while.
We also saw San Lorenzo, Santa Maria Novella, and some other more minor things.

Our last day in Florence we went to see Michelangelo's David. It was absolutely enormous and I had no idea. Basically 24 feet tall. After we shopped the street vendor seeling all kinds of things- lots and lots of leather. After we "hiked" across town to the Michelangelo plaza for a view of the entire city. That night we took and overnight train to Veinna with a private 6 person couchette.

Last days of France

The last few days in france were long ones. Our first day out of Paris consited of two stops and 13 hours. The stops were Ronchamp with a brief drive by at Chaux and finally stopping for the night at La Tourette. Both La Tourette and Ronchamp are Le Corbusier. Ronchamp is a church and la Tourette is a monastery. We actually spent the night in the monastery and in the morning went to a prayer service with the monks. Both buildings were super beautiful.

The next day we went to Orange, Arles, Pont du Gard and got to the hotel in Nîmes. In Orange we saw an enormous roman theatre.  Arles had its own theatre and an arena and a cloister. I also had kebab again, obviously delicious. After arles we went to the Pont du Gard- an enormous roman aqueduct over the river- and we went swiming at sunset.

Nîmes had roman ruins of its own and the maison de carre and the carre de art by Renzo Piano. Finished the day attempting to work on studio and the train to Barcelona.

Pictures to follow.

EDIT: Pictures were suppised to be attached to this but due to the insanely bad internet throughout this trip they did not originally post.