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!