Vienna 2000 - The Tour
From
July 20th through August 9th, 2000, a 
patrol-sized contingent from Troop 461
visited Vienna, Austria and attended the international scout jamboree called "Vienna
2000." A total of seven scouts and five leaders were involved in the trip which
included a week of home hospitality with a family from Wien Pfadfinder Gruppe 12 and
sightseeing in Vienna. The latter part of the trip, from July 29th through August
9th, involved Vienna 2000 and all of the activities associated with an international scout
jamboree. The photo at right shows our group as we prepared to depart for Vienna on
July 20th. Members of the group include, first row, l to r, Harold Frederick, Jr.,
Mike Hohenwarter, Alex Peoples, Zach Wile and Mike Flowers. In the second row are, l
to r, Mark Hohenwarter, Dr. David Flowers, Chris Shepardson, Steve Baldovsky, Chris Gore,
Jerry Cumberledge and Tim Wile. 
The photo at left shows
three members of our group, Zach Wile, Mike Flowers and Chris Gore, at the gate area of
Philadelphia International Airport as we awaited our Air France flight to Paris on the
first leg of our trip to Vienna. The boys were all hungry at the airport and took
advantage of a nearby Burger King for a last taste of US fast food for the coming three
weeks. The flight to Paris took over 6 hours and took us over six time zones.
We left Philadelphia at 5:05 p.m. on July 20th and arrived in Paris, France at 6:15 a.m.
on July 21st. We managed to negotiate Charles DeGaulle Airport in Paris to connect
with our flight to Vienna. In Vienna, once we cleared Austrian customs, we met
several leaders from Wien Pfadfinder Gruppe 12 who transported us to our host family.
The photo at right shows the group in St. Stephansplatz in downtown Vienna.
Our group spent seven days touring the sights of Vienna under the inspired
leadership of Dr. David Flowers, who served as our tour director. On our first
Saturday in Vienna, we visited the St. Stephans' church and climbed the 343 steps in the
steeple for a beautiful view of the city.
Motor vehicles take
different shapes and sizes in Europe and our boys were fascinated by the smaller personal
sized cars such as the one shown below that is made by the Swatch company, known in the
United States for making watches.
Our Austrian Guide told us that these Swatch cars can go up to 60 kilometers per
hour and are legal for driving on the roadways. Very few of us would want to take
something like this on the Schuylkill Expressway at rush hour! Small cars such as
these make sense in a country where the price of gasoline was more than $4.00 per gallon
and is sold by the liter!
The photo at right
shows a portion of the interior of St. Stephan's Church, located in downtown Vienna.
Construction of this church began in the 12th Century. The church was heavily
damaged by Allied bombing during world war two and much of the building has since been
restored. The ceiling of the church collapsed in 1945 and the current ceiling seen
here is a restoration performed in the early 1950s.
Austria's currency
unit is the Schilling, which was worth around 7¢ at the time we were in Vienna, which
meant that each US dollar was worth about 14 Schillings. In 2001, however, Austria,
like a number of other countries in the European Union, is converting to the Euro, which
is currently worth approximately 87¢. 
Austrian currency is printed in
different colours and are manufactured in different sizes, with the size of the currency
note increasing with the denomination of the note. With the different sizes and
colours, it was easy to tell the different denominations of notes from each other.
A number of our Austrian hosts thought that it was odd that US currency is all produced in
the same size and in the same design, which they thought would make the notes difficult to
tell apart. Austrian Schillings are further subdivided into smaller units called
"Groschens." The smallest denomination coin that we
came into contact with were
10 Groschen coins, which are about the size of a US cent and made out of aluminum.
The 10 Groschen piece is worth less than 7/10ths of a cent but a certain member of our
group would nevertheless stop to pick one up if he saw it lying in a Vienna street!
The public transportation
system in Vienna was both a wonder and a pleasure to ride. Using a combination of
subways, busses, trains and streetcars, it was possible to get to any point in the city
quickly and without worrying about traffic or finding a place to park. The subway
trains ran every two minutes and the busses and streetcars ran every ten minutes.
The busses and trains were clean, as were the stations, and public transportation was a
very effective way to get around Vienna. The photo below shows one of Vienna's
streetcars, or "strassenbahns" coming into a station on the famous Ringstraße
in front of Austria's Parliment building.
Up until November 1918, Vienna was the capital of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and the palaces of the Austro-Hungarian Emperors present an
impressive spectacle for visitors to the city. The winter palace, or Schloß
Hofburg, lies in center city Vienna and is also the home of the world famous Spanish
Riding School. The Schloß Hofburg was expanded by each Austrian Emperor who came
to power as each built his or her own living quarters as additions to the Hofburg.
The most recent additions were built in the early 1900s by the Emperor Franz Joseph I who
reigned from 1848 until his death in 1916.
The photo below shows the main building of the Schloß Hofburg that faces into an
impressive public park. A portion of this main building now houses the Austrian
state library. It was from the Neu Hofburg that the Austrian Republic was proclaimed
in November 1918 following the withdrawal from participation in government of Emperor Karl
I. It was also in this square that Adolph Hitler announced the annexation, or
Anschluß, of Austria into the Greater German Reich in 1938.
In addition to the
Hofburg, the Austrian Emperors also had a summer palace in the southwest part of Vienna.
The summer palace is known as Schloß Schönbrunn, meaning "beautiful
fountain" and is named for a natural fountain that was
originally found on the premises. When originally built, Schloß Schönbrunn lay
outside of the city of Vienna and was originally built as a hunting lodge by the Austrian
emperors. Schönbrunn's history as a palace began in the mid-1700s with the Empress
Maria Theresa. In addition to the actual summer palace, the grounds at Schloß
Schönbrunn also include a Tiergarten, or zoo,a hunting lodge, which is now a restaurant,
a maze and botantical gardens. The photo below left shows the small hunting lodge on
the grounds of Schloß Schönbrunn that is
built on a small hill overlooking the main summer palace. The summer
palace itself was originally to be built on the hill but a lack of funds restricted the
building to a hunting lodge. Schloß Schönbrunn has nearly 1,400 rooms, of which
nearly 400 were used to house members of the royal family, the Habsburgs. The
remainder were used as kitchens, servants quarters, and the like. Schönbrunn appeared to
be one of the favorite palaces of the Emperor Franz Joseph I, who was born at Schönbrunn
in 1830 and died there in 1916. The last Austrian Emperor, Karl I, renounced any
further participation in government at Schönbrunn in November 1918 before leaving for
exile in Switzerland in March of 1919.
In addition to seeing the
major sights of Vienna, we also took in some more out of the way attractions. We
visited a torture museum that is housed in a former World War
Two air
raid shelter and an aquarium that is housed in a former World War Two flak tower.
Satisfying the more morbid curiosity of one of the adult leaders, we also visited the
Vienna pathology museum, which houses an impressive collection of medical artifacts and
specimens. Among the places we visited was the crypt of the Habsburg emperors, which
includes the tomb of Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Franz Joseph I. Some of the
places which we visited were so off the beaten track that even our Austrian hosts did not
know of their existence! The photo at the left shows our group in front of our host
family's home in Leopoldsdorf, which is just outside of Vienna. Two of our Austrian
hosts appear in the photo with the group. Peter Sedlak is at the far left while
Christian Sedlak is found center front.
At the end of a busy day of sight-seeing,
our scouts rested at the Reimannsplatz bus stop for the bus that would take us to
Leopoldsdorf and our host family's home. Hiding behind his hat is Alex Peoples with
Zach Wile and Mike Flowers seated to his right. Markus Stutterecker, one of the
scouts from Wiener Pfadfinder Gruppe 12, who acted as one of our guides throughout Vienna,
is seated to Alex's left.
On Saturday, July
29th, we departed from our host family to set up camp at Vienna 2000. Click on the
hyperlink below for a narrative and photos from the Jamboree!
This Page Last Updated on
Sunday, May 25, 2003