By Joseph L. Garcia, Senior Reporter
DURING a trip BusinessWorld took to Vienna in October, the Austrian capital felt like the setting of a fairy tale. Across our hotel at the Neuer Markt square (the new market, but it had been so since the Middle Ages) stood the shop of A.E. Köchert, jewelers to the Habsburgs, the former Imperial dynasty of Austria (and once, the Holy Roman Empire). Their windows displayed diamond tiaras, while street performers nearby sang arias, and waltzed with their audience. Bells from St. Stephen’s Cathedral woke the square, populated by old-world shops filled with only one specialty: fur, or silver, or stationery.
Every fairy tale has an end, however, and for the rulers of the House of Habsburg, they were reminded of this by the Kapuzinergruft, the Imperial crypt. Located in the same Neuer Markt square (it was a two-minute walk from our hotel), this is where members of the Habsburg family were laid to rest. Oddly enough, it’s a mere seven-minute stroll from their once-seat of power, the Hofburg Palace (aside from being a museum, it also houses the offices of the Austrian president, now Alexander Van der Bellen). The Hofburg Palace complex also holds their treasures at the Schatzkammer (the Imperial Treasury), for all to gawk at and see — at least one thing is true: you really can’t take it to your grave.
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