It's Friday so not just a new weekend ahead with who knows what option to relax, but also the day of the week when I open up my folders of memories created while travelling and share one more destination on here.
Actually, Romania faces some grumpy weather lately with lots of rain, storms, cold temperatures but also dark skies, so my mood really didn't help in picking a sunny and beautiful location to explore but actually one that is pretty close to today's weather conditions.
Sadly, our whole trip to Vienna faced this kind of grumpy weather since it took place at the beginning of December and there is really not much sun you could observe on the sky, but that did not stop us from getting out of the place we called home for a couple of days and see what Vienna has to offer to its tourists.
We were actually coming from a nearby park where we've spent some moments, so that did keep us linked in one way or another with nature even if it consisted of just a couple of trees. But there was really a very interesting panel with a few drawings that caught my attention just before reaching St. Charles's Church.
I am not sure what they mean and if they are there all the time as there was no informative panel regarding these, but since our trip happened when lots of Christmas Markets were taking place in Vienna, the paintings might as well just have been part of those markets, even though I couldn't find anything related to Christmas on these.
Anyway, not too far from the paintings, we met St. Charles's Church which is originally known as Karlskirche and it reminds me about the famous mosque of Abu Dhabi in one way or another, even though I've never been there on my own... yet.
We actually wanted to check St. Charles's Church as we observed from our travelling experiences that this kind of places in general represent one of the most genuine locations a tourist can check to gain lots of information about the past of a country, storing important historical moments pretty well.
St. Charles's Church dates since 1737 and it follows a Baroque style which is quite common along with the Medieval one for most of the buildings of Vienna.
Initially, Vienna was developed in early Celtic and Roman settlements but slowly moved to a Medieval and Baroque style that determined the overall look of the city.
Raising the construction of the church was entirely dedicated to Saint Charles Borromeo, one of the great counter-reformers of the sixteenth century and it still serves as one of the city's greatest buildings even in 2024 when lots of more modern and interesting architectural styles are adopted.
Building the church started in 1716 which was just 3 years later since the great plague epidemic that affected Austria pretty badly, but where Saint Charles Borromeo was the only healer in town that managed to save plague's sufferers.
So as soon as the plague epidemic ended, an architectural competition has started where more people joined to show off their projects and possibly get the honour to raise the church in the name of their healer.
The one winning the contest was Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach but he passed away in 1723 so the whole work was continued by his son who partially used different plans from the original ones, but which still did a great job at the end of the project.
Some of the most interesting parts of the church's architecture are the facade in the centre, which leads to the porch that corresponds to a Greek temple portico and is quite often met around the world, noticing some of these samples during my trip to Venice but also in my home country, at Ateneul Roman from Bucharest, Romania.
The neighbouring two columns are also an important part of the overall building as they followed a model in Trajan's Column of Rome and they fit very well next to the two tower pavilions nearby that show how a building can become multicultural with just a few architectural elements picked carefully.
However, what I call St. Charles's Church a complete experience is not limited just to the beauty of the outside as the interior is no less impressive and I bet you can imagine what's inside there!
Though, our luck wasn't with us back in that day as some concerts were held inside and while visiting the church can happen with no problem most of the time, we were not allowed to explore it unless the concert was coming to an end. And considering that it was just about to start, we couldn't wait until it was finished but decided to see some other places during that period of time with the promise that maybe one day we'll return to St. Charles's Church for a full experience as we chased.
The church is open from Monday to Saturday between 9 AM and 6 PM, and on Sunday between 11 AM and 7 PM.
The complete address of St. Charles's Church is Karlskirche, Karlsplatz 10, 1040 Wien, Austria and depending on which side of Vienna you are coming from, you can opt in for any of the following busses N66, 4A, N71, N74 which will take you pretty close to your destination.
We decided to walk since we were coming from Stadpark and regretted not a thing!
Other places I've seen during my stay in Vienna:
- The Austrian Parliament Building
- Capuchin Church (Katholische Kapuzinerkirche "Hl. Maria von den Engeln")
- The tour of the Christmas Markets from Vienna, Austria
- Stadtpark
- Shop Windows of Vienna, Austria
- Hundertwasser House (Hundertwasserhaus)
- The Imperial Crypt
- Column of Pest (The Plague Column, Vienna, Austria)
- St. Charles's Church (Karlskirche)
more coming soon...
Gabriela Travels is the FOUNDER of "Festival Mania" who started this community from the passion of attending various festivals and with the purpose of encouraging more people to explore festivals all around the world and share their experiences. At the same time, Gabriela is an independent Graphic Design Freelancer since 2019 completing over 600+ orders in this time and collaborating with various businesses and people from all over the globe. Additionally, Gabriela has her own corner on the internet since 2017 where she writes various articles for her blog, the most popular being the travel ones (260+ articles written on this field), but also abording other topics as well, like game reviews, movie and series reviews, photography posts, cooking recipes and more, boosting the total number of articles written to 550+ blog posts. Gabriela is also a gamer since she was 11 years old and gaming remains one of her biggest passions along with traveling, editing, cooking, and doing various sports activities.
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