EXPEDITIONS
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Upper School History Trip to Vienna and Budapest
Harry Taylor (Year 12)
Communist memorials at Memento Park, Budapest
O ur engagement with Vienna’s past began in the lozenge-tiled roof. A cannonball embedded in the exterior, fired from a Turkish cannon during the 1529 siege, was a reminder of this city’s often turbulent past and we were later able to peruse further visual reminders of that attack, as well as the later Ottoman assault in 1683, in the City Museum. Guided expertly, as ever, by Mr Smith, our walking tour of the medieval quarter saw us examining all manner of architectural styles for clues about the city’s past. The plain exterior of the Greek Orthodox Church, for example, had been permitted by the tolerant Josef II, according to the law whereby non-Catholics could practise as long as they did so in inconspicuous buildings. Fortified by our evening repast of schnitzel (what else?), we headed back into the city to see it illuminated by night and wove our way through the maze of edifices constituting old Habsburg palace, collectively known as the Hofburg. Day two involved an excursion to the royal summer palace of Schönbrunn Palace and stories of those who heart of the old city, with a visit to the spectacular St Stephen’s Cathedral and its distinctive multi-coloured
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