Motzart, Beethoven, Hadyn, Schubert, Klimt, Schiele, Kafka, Freud, Mahler. The big hitters all lived here in Vienna. Opera, ballet, orchestra, galleries and architecture. Four days and we knew we were going to only skim the surface of this truly spectacular city of the arts. Beautiful place, beautiful apartment so elegant and sophisticated.
We were so pathetically happy to see our train at the station in Budapest – A German company, a modern train with wifi and air con and seats that weren’t too dirty to sit on. Are we just spoiled or just grateful you can judge. A super pleasant 2.5 hour trip to Vienna. Passpport control? what passport control no one even looked at our passports, as we passed from Hungary to Austria. Super easy and… well unexpected. After the usual money search, sim card search and an uber ride we arrived at our rather smart apartment in down town Vienna baby. Whoo finally in a swanky pad in the heart of the action. But still super hot, no air con or fan in this case. But we are getting used to sweating from places we didn’t even know it was possible to sweat from. (TMI for gawd’s sake).
Famous neighbours around here Mr Sigmund Freud if you please had his office in the next street for 37 years until the Nazis forced his exile to Britain. Lovely to imagine all his delicate ladies lining up down our street to see him. I know I /we have a few problems wish I could lounge an his couch and spill my guts.
Belvedere was our first gallery/museum one of many to come, we loved it here. The early bird does catch the worm, instead of crowded salons we we rewarded with echoing rooms full of artistic treasures. Amazing.
Now a gallery formerly one of many palaces for the Hapsburgs, completed in 1723. Housing many works by Gustav Klimt. Anyone recognise this one ? Have to admit I did shed a tear in the presence of such a masterpiece.
And the man Egon. Nice
And of course the big guns.
The natural history Museum was a great choice after the Belvedere change it up. What fun it was in there. Dinosaurs, fossils, gold and jewels. Human skulls, weapons and tools from past ages and all manner of stuffed animals, bottles of snakes, parasites and various organs. So many goodies we could spend a week in here and not see everything.
We were floored by the interior decoration. And the amount of specimens – rooms and rooms of birds every species from every corner of the globe same with mammals and reptiles – all stuffed and displayed in huge glass cabinets.
And down a side corridor we found what we thought was the greatest treasure in the whole place A little 11 cm high statue that looked like our Cybele, you remember the goddess pre-dating Artemis from Ephesus. Now here in a museum in Vienna is a 28,000 year stone carving that looks remarkably the same but very much older. She was amazing. We could hardly believe her age. She is believed to have been carved during the European Upper Paleolithic, or “Old Stone Age”, a period of prehistory starting around 30,000 BCE. that is 20,000 years before the last ice age. Minds blown we left the museum.Venus of Willendorf. . LOVED her mother goddess.
The next day we went to the Hofburg Palace. A sprawling group of massive elaborate buildings apartments and a treasury this was not a usual palace It was the the bastion of the House of Habsburg monarchs of Austria for more than six centuries from 1276 until the fall of the Habsburg monarchy in 1918. The Palace, contains 18 wings, with a total of 2550 rooms and 19 courtyards.Just vast like a city of its own.
Many important actions and events took place here, most notably Hitler’s ceremonial announcement of the Austrian Anschluss to Nazi Germany on 15 March 1938. This is the balcony. The beginnings of the Terror to come.
The Imperial Treasury contains a lots of valuable secular and ecclesiastical treasures covering over a thousand years of European history. Notable ones we loved – the 2680 carat emerald vessel. Solid gold baptismal jugs for royal christenings.Jewel encrusted crown looked like hard candies not jewels. And last but not least and The Spear of Destiny… whaaat ? This is the spear that supposedly was used to pierce Jesus’s side at the crucifixion. Just love the relics and their mysteries.
It was hard to get lost in Vienna as everywhere you went it was possible to see one or two landmarks we could regognise. a prominent one being the St Stephens Cathderal in a state of constantly being cleaned there for always has scafolding – vast and gothic the inside was a treat. Gorgeous.
Architecturally mirroring the Natural History Museum is the Kunsthistorisches Museum often referred to as the “Museum of Fine Arts” The two museums have similar exteriors and face each other. The museum’s primary collections are those of the Habsburg family who were obscenely and unimaginably wealthy.
One of the highlights of the gallery is the Gustav Klimt frieze. To mark the centenary his death (1862-1918) a huge bridge was erected by the museum to allow visitors to get really close to the mural which is displayed twelve metres above the Main Staircase. The paintings, commissioned by Emperor Franz Joseph and executed by Gustav Klimt, his brother Ernst and their friend, Franz Matsch, depict important periods of art history. Stunning up close.
Rooms and rooms of priceless beautiful art Durer, Tintoretto, Carravagio, Rubens, Raphael, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Brueghel on and on until sensory overload aka nap time. Whew that was a fast few days pretty exciting, catching the train to Prague tomorrow.
