Bis Bald

Our pickup at 4 am was delayed about 10 minutes as our driver had to apparently find her cat that had escaped. Her WhatsApp voice message at 3:30 am made my mom and me chuckle. Also I remarked to my mom, I didn’t recognize the highway and for a split second, I forgot we arrived by boat.

The airport was super busy, but we managed through with no problems. All day I was hopeful that we wouldn’t have transit issues like at the start of our trip. We transferred in Amsterdam - here’s not-an-exciting photo from the lounge, but I include because we should have been here at the start of the trip.



To NY, we enjoyed our Delta One seats for which my points upgrade was refunded due to our delays into Budapest (a small plus). Our flight out of Amsterdam was only slightly delayed 30 minutes due to waiting for the incoming plane from Boston and allowed us to relax more in the KLM lounge which I surveyed as we transit here in April on our way to Istanbul.

I leave Austria impressed even more with its culture and impact on history and society. I loved Vienna for its cleanliness and accessibility and hope to come back again. Certainly, I have no regrets as we maximized our time here. We definitely got the hang of the mandatory coat checking culture and plethora of chandeliers - there were several even in the airport! In the future, I hope to visit other areas of Austria - several folks were headed to Salzburg after the cruise which I imagine would be lovely.

So Auf Wiedersehen, as I learned from the “Sound of Music” many years ago. But I can’t use “Auf Wiedersehen” as my post title as I used it in 2019 when I departed Germany. So more causally, Bis Bald!

Museum Ring

Our initial plan was to have breakfast at Café Central, a popular coffeehouse frequented by Sigmund Freud, intellectuals, and politicians. However after our Uber ride and attempt to get there before opening, we just took a photo outside of the palatial building:



We ended up at Café Royal where we had a light breakfast underneath the images of the Emperor and Empress. We were served by a friendly Turkish waiter who was studying German before starting his studies at the prestigious Technical University:



The empress Elisabeth nicknamed Sisi, was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Franz Joseph I until her assassination in Switzerland. She was beloved by Hungarians and our Budapest hotel was near the Elizabeth Bridge. She had several daughters and one son who committed murder suicide with his mistress - we heard a little bit about this incident on our bus tours and because there have been several movies related to her life.

The café was across the street from the Spanish Riding School, a renowned Austrian institution (despite the name) dedicated to classical dressage and the training of Lipizzaner horses. Performances were only on the weekend, so I booked us a viewing of the morning exercises where we observed two roughly twenty minute training sessions. One was a younger group of five horses and then a more experienced group that practiced more advanced skills. We could not take any photos or video, so we took snaps before the horses were brought out to the ring:





After the horses, we headed to the Museumsquartier to visit the Leopold Museum, recommended by my cousin:



You could see the other museums from the window:



The lobby of the Leopold museum:



The museum has one of the largest collections of modern Austrian art, featuring artists such as Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Oskar Kokoschka. I learned about artistic periods such as Secession and Austrian expressionism and modernism. Here is “Life and Death” by Klimt:



Blue print for Angel Window for a church designed by Otto Wagner:



Hoffman was apparently a furniture and interior designer. There were many furniture pieces mixed in with the art:



I had seen a movie called “Bride of Wind” many years ago about Oskar Kokoschka and his affair with the famous composer Gustavo Mahler’s wife - the exhibits described their affair as “crazy love”. He designed these exhibition art posters:



Here’s one of his paintings, “Alice in Wonderland”, showing the complicity of Nazism as he has soldiers covering their eyes, ears, and mouth:



Several of Egon Schiele’s portraits - himself and of his lover / model Wally who he did not marry. Klimt was his mentor:









In the museum was a model of the Secession Exhibition Building that was used to display the movement’s art:



It wasn’t on the agenda, but we decided to then walk the 6 minutes or so to the Secession Building itself which is an “architectural manifesto for the Vienna Secession”, a group of rebel artists that seceded from fine art norms.



Here houses the “Beethoven Frieze” painted in 1902 by Klimt for the Fourteenth Vienna Secession exhibition in celebration of the 75th anniversary of Beethoven's death. It is inspired by the composer Richard Wagner's interpretation of Beethoven's Ninth symphony. You had the option of headsets to listen to the symphony while soaking in the frieze:



Per Wikipedia, its left side begins with genii floating toward a knight, driving him to champion the driving force: happiness.



The middle panel displays personified threats to the striving (imagined as male) individual, such as lust and sexuality's then feared consequence: syphilis.



The frieze's (as solution to the problem of lust, or libido, gone astray) and culminates choir singing in a loving embrace directly referencing Beethoven's "kiss" of all humanity in his symphony.





Not sure I completely understood, but the combination of the music and staring at Klimt’s masterpiece was really unique - I felt very Viennese! We then walked about 5 minutes again to where the Opera house, Albertina Museum, and Café Sacher intersect.

I saw a line for the famous Café Sacher and I told my mom we should leave, but she insisted we wait - I am my mother’s daughter. I think she was in no hurry to go into the Albertina, another museum.

The café and hotel is famous for the Sachertorte, a chocolate cake with apricot filling. We ordered the original Sachertorte along with hot chocolate and a Maria Theresa coffee which is a double espresso with orange liquor in the beautiful café - our midafternoon snack:





We then crossed the street to the Albertina which has a tremendous Impressionism and modern art permanent collection. We thoroughly enjoyed it and the audio guide had Korean, so my mom loved it even more. There’s a second Albertina Modern, but I opted only for the original - even I have museum limits. The outside of the building:



Here’s Chagall’s “Sleeping Woman with Flowers”:



Van Gogh’s “Head of a Skeleton with Burning Cigarette” - this was in the Gothic Modern exhibition and I’ve never seen such a depressing Van Gogh, but apparently this was painted during one of his dark times:



The building is an old government building, so it has opulent state rooms:





For dinner, our reservations were at DO & Co Albertina recommended by Bill, connected to the museum, and across the street from the opera. It’s owned by the Demel restaurant group and they also have a rival Sachertorte. We shared calamari, my mom ate sea bass with a side salad, while I enjoyed a steak salad. We didn’t order dessert as we had the Sachertorte earlier.



We had tickets to the opera, so we walked across the street…







Per Bill’s recommendation, we saw Elektra, Op. 58, which is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss.

Per Wikipedia: Set in the city of Mycenae a few years after the Trojan War, the play tells of a bitter struggle for justice by Electra and her brother Orestes for the murder of their father Agamemnon by their mother Clytemnestra and their stepfather Aegisthus.

The voices were tremendous and the orchestra powerful. Here are the performers and conductor taking their bows:



My mom isn’t a huge fan of Strauss, but it was an opportunity to come inside and I had initially thought the Bach Oratorio was sold out. I had only budgeted in my mind for one performing arts night, but it all worked out in the end.

What a day - drizzly but active, but not as tiring as yesterday. My mom said it’s probably because disembarking and the transition to life off the boat was the adjustment. We did our ring around the museums and my mom’s fitness app let us know she hit 200% of her goal today. Our last night in Europe celebrating the Christmas season and our Vienna adventures were full and successful!

City of Music (and Museums)

After breakfast and more goodbyes, we disembarked the boat one last time - we really enjoyed the river cruise experience as it was more intimate and cozy compared to ocean cruises and the food and service was outstanding!

We ordered an Uber to our hotel as I had booked the Marriott Autograph hotel called the Imperial Riding School. It definitely had an equestrian feel as it was historically a military equestrian school. Our room was ready, so we settled in and rested before heading out. Our top agenda of the day was to see Gustav Klimt’s “The Kiss”:



This is housed in the Belvedere which is a complex of Baroque palaces and walking distance from our hotel. We meandered through the botanical gardens and were early for our timed entry. I had booked two out of three - upper and lower galleries and opted out of Belvedere 21 as I felt it would have been too much and much more modern and unfamiliar.

We walked down the hill to the lower palace / galleries pictured here:





They had a “Cezanne, Monet, and Renoir” exhibit and an exhibition on Franz Xaver Messerschmidt who was a German-Austrian sculptor most famous for his "character heads". Here’s one that I found later in the upper gallery:



When it was time, we walked back up to the upper gallery - here are a few photos of the upper building below which had Christmas markets on one side:







And here’s the art inside from Klimt…









Egon Schiele’s “The Embrace”:



We saw many others highlighting the prominent Austrian artists in this beautiful building. After stopping through the museum gift shop and seeing the small Christmas market, we boarded the D tram and made our way to the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien or Vienna Museum of Art History.

It’s a building twin and mirrors the Natural History Museum pictured below with a statue of Maria Theresa in the middle:



Inside the art history museum:







The art was impressive and my mom was excited to see one of Vermeer’s masterpieces, “Art of Painting”:



Here’s Bruegel’s “Tower of Babel”:



And his “Peasant Wedding”:



Caravaggio’s “Madonna with the Rosary” and “David with the Head of Goliath” which is actually a self-portrait:





A series of Velázquez portraits:





The museum reminds me of the Metropolitan Museum in NY. We skipped the coin collection, but walked through the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman collections:









In the middle of it all, we enjoyed a latte and hot chocolate in the Cupola with plush red seats and noshed on Viennese sausages:







A selfie with a photobomb from our friendly waiter:



We exited the museum in no time (getting in took awhile) and got on a red tram and transferred to the 59A bus in front of the Opera. We had reservations at Zum Alten Fassl, a local restaurant recommended by my friend Bill who visits Vienna several times a year for work.

We shared a traditional schnitzel and spätzle as recommended by our waiter who had an American accent. He said I did too as he joked, but his parents were from Pennsylvania and New Jersey and they immigrated to Austria when he was 9. Collage below:



After dinner, we had chamomile tea and I ordered a Wiener Melange which is a classic Viennese coffee drink, similar to a cappuccino but made with a milder coffee and a thinner layer of milk foam.

I wanted to caffeinate as we were headed to Konzerthaus for a classical concert. Vienna is known as the “City of Music” and was home to many classical composers, including Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, Mahler, Mozart, Schubert, Johann Strauss I, and Johann Strauss II. Here’s us in front of the Mozart statue after getting off the tram for the art museum:



As a leading music center, I was overwhelmed by the options especially during the holiday season. So Bill who works in the music industry, perused the performance schedules and recommended Bach’s Christmas Oratorio. It technically has 6 parts, but the Vienna Symphony and Singing Academy were performing I (Birth of Jesus), II (Annunciation to the Shepherds) ), and VI (Epiphany).

I managed to purchase the last two tickets by emailing the box office. It wasn’t technically sold out, but you couldn’t purchase directly on the website with only a few left. We had balcony seats closest to the stage, so we got a close view of the outstanding performers in the Great Hall:





Afterwards, I convinced my mom to walk 5 minutes into the City Park, so we could take a picture of the Johann Strauss Monument. He’s most known for the “Blue Danube Waltz” which is played at midnight of New Year’s Eve to help ring in the year. We were told through the various tour guides, the city is celebrating the 200 year anniversary of his birth:



We drove by all the places we saw today through the river cruise tours, but it was fun to see them all up close and to enjoy what the city has to offer! Also on our Uber ride to the concert, we asked our driver to turn up “Golden” that was playing on the radio and hummed along - my mom is astounded that K-Pop is this popular, but I reminded her we were in the City of Music!