Intercession of the Virgin Mary - Pokrov

Today, on October 1 the Catholic Christians celebrate the feast of the Intercession of the Theotokos (Virgin Mary), known in Church Slavonic as Pokrov (protection). For Eastern Orthodox Christians this feast will come on October 14, but I live in Austria now, so congratulate visitors of my blog today.

From my childhood, when I lived in Russia I remember that usually there is a heavy fall of snow by this day. And it was only fact that I knew about Pokrov.

Later I’ve got to know with a holiday close: I have read about feast and its distinctive marks and that this day marks the meeting of fall with winter.

I like this one: the more snow at the Pokrov – more weddings will be this year. But it doesn’t “work” in Vienna, there may be rain on this day but hardly ever snow there.

There is a beautiful Orthodox Church built in 19^th century in Vienna. Sometimes I visit it and I’m going to St Nicholas Church on September 14 again.

I presented earlier the Jewels of our company “Green Diamond” but we produce and sell not only Costume Jewelry but also there is a section of Christian Jewelry in our internet store.

Take a look at crosses, rings, medallions and I hope you’ll wish to get something. http://stores.ebay.com/GREEN-DIAMOND-SJD/Jewelry-Christianity-/_i.html

  

Vienna. Karlskirche – start point of the walk

My summer pause has ended, and I again welcome all friends and visitors of my blog Rene Delicious Life.

I travelled a lot some months and now I’m ready to tell about and to show all places that I visited.

Today I begin the chronicle story about lengthy and, in my opinion, very interesting architectural-historical route of Vienna.

We’ll start from one of the Viennese landmark – Karlskirche, the creation of architect Johann Bernhard Fisher von Erlach and will finish with other, no less known Shönbrunn Palace of the same architect.

A little bit of history.

The 19^th century was coming to the end. There were implemented some important city projects in Vienna. And one of them was: Wien River that flows through the Vienna (15 km within the city limits) was concluded in concrete beds or hidden under the ground. Thus, it was possible to stop the floods. In result, the landscape of a big territory from Karlskirche up to Schönbrunn Palace completely was changed, and the main architect of those years Otto Wagner completely transform a habitual view of this flooded area before to magnificent parkway which now named Wienzeile and is one of the Vienna’s longest Streets.  

Karlskirche or St Charle’s Church was built in 18^th century and was a parish church of imperial family. In times when there wasn’t infill development around Ringße and Hofburg Palace was in direct vision from the Church.

Karlskirche is one of the most well known Viennese sights so I won’t overburden my story with details as Karlskirche is described well in any tourist guide. My purpose for today was to designate a start point of a route and I place some photos of Karlscirche and we begin a walk along one of the longest Viennese streets – Wienzeile.

Baden. Festival of Roses in Doublhoffpark

Today I’ll tell about an annual festival in Doublhoffpark during rose’s blossoming.

Every year within a month (this year from May 22 up to June 20), the Festival of Roses take place in Doublhoffpark and the Ball of Roses, which is held in the open air, is its culmination. For the whole month the schedule of cultural events, which don’t repeat, is made. It is nice that assign the special children’s program and the small inhabitants with special needs receive individual invitations.
I visited Doublhoffpark twice within a month and you will see everything – the flower fairy dancing in park alley, a small exhibition of roses grown by owners of private gardens with indispensable prize awarding (take a look at photo - Rose Mini Eden). This exhibition is traditionally held in the restored charming Baroque orangery.
There is a big pergola which shape shady alley in the Doublhoffpark and some of the climbing roses are trained to grow along this pergola (see photo). I like to walk along this small “avenue” and when I lift my head I admire roses against the heavenly azure.
June has ended. The Roses showed their magnificence in the course of whole month, but Doublhoffpark has some more secrets and I’ll tell a little bit later about.
And now has come the time return to Vienna and I wanna give particular attention to the Viennese architecture in my future stories.

Baden. Green Oasis – Garden & Roses.

We already visited Baden once, and Doblhoffpark we visited too. It has been in May when along with residents of Baden lifted the Maibaum (Maypole).
And today we’ll visit the spa town for the second time. Baden is located absolutely near to Vienna, only in 26 km far away. There even is a special tram-train (Badener Bahn), starting from Vienna State Opera to Baden, but the track has so many stops and takes sometimes more than hour, so I prefer to get there by the railway line. Using this small ruse, I shorten the travel time up to 20 minutes with only some stops. In my opinion it is more convenient decision even than to get Baden by auto, especially when a season of young wines tasting begins.
Today the roses are still in blossom and we again enter to Doblhoffpark. The Doblhoffpark is known for its rosarium, largest in Austria and garden often named, the Garden of Roses. The Dobllhof Park, along with Kurpark, is one of the favorite places for rest of inhabitants and guests and they lead a lot of hours among the roses. In previous times the park was a part of Weikersdorf Castle, and now it is named Doblhoffpark after the name of its last owners. The Doblhoffpark became the property of local municipality in the 1960s of 20th century and the magnificent rosary was designed by architect Victor Modlhammer. I allow giving some impressing statistics: more than 30,000 rose shrubs are growing in 175 beds. The roses are in bloom twice a year – for the first time in June and in October – the second bloom.

Green Vienna. Folksgarten II

Today I once again invite to visit Vienna’s Folkgarten and have some more pleasant moments among roses.
Last time I’ve forgotten to write, that Folksgarten is a part of Hoffburg Palace ensemble.
By the way, one of the photos has been example of web design aquarelle and I've already ‘reserved a place’ in future for creation of aquarelle album on the basis of my lovely flowers photos.

Green Vienna. Folksgarten

Certainly, you have read in my profile that one of my professional activities is flora design and so I always pay my attention to this component of city landscape design. I already placed some posts related to gardens, parks and greenhouses and today I start a new cycle which named Green Vienna.
And believe me, there is what to show in Vienna and it will be not only most illustrious parks though also these parks I won’t disregard.
This year spring in Austria was cooler than usually and roses have blossomed with delay. In my opinion, in Vienna, the roses of Folksgarten are out of competition and when the flowering starts the garden is crowded in evening and can hardly to find a place to sit down and take pleasure both magnificent flowering and wonderful aroma of roses.
The Folksgarten is situated in first district of Vienna, in the Inner Stadt and there are seated the most attractive sights of the city. The park was built over the city fortifications destroyed by Napoleon. There is a site, and I’ll show it later where the part of old defensive walls was kept.
The park built step by step during several years and it was opened to the public in 1820 and also there is some small monuments, constructions, statues and fountains but today I give my love to roses.
The park roses start the blossom first. They are of once flowering and consequently I try to catch this moment when the big shrubs get a white, pink, yellow and red cover.
Further everything goes according to the order – climber roses, ramblers, groundcover, miniature, shrubs and certainly there are a lot of verities of their ancestries and colors.
So, today – a rest for eyes – the Queen Rose.