Kunst Historisches Museum

 In the morning of our first Vienna day we decided to go to the Kunst Historisches Museum.

We spent about 3 hours in the museum but only on the top floor with the paintings. For later we had a pre booked tour of Schonbrun with a concert and evening meal. This was the second time I had visited the Schoenbrunn, where we took all the back ways due to Christls wheel chair. They took us through Franz Josephs apartments, strange to think that Christl was alive at the time, although too young to remember anything. 
The Residenz restaurant was the place for dinner. Entree was rindsuppe with fritaten for all of us. Uschi had a sherry aperitif, Christine had campari and orange while I had hollersekt. The main meal was Wiener Tafelspitz with schnittlauch sauce and gerosteten erdaepfel. The potato was cut into about 5mm cubes and served in a dense mound, perhaps roasted in that way. Very like a browner version of corned beef. Uschi had a red wine (Wieninger wienertrilogie) I had a Paschinger “Urbileicht” gruener Veltliner.
Dessert was apple struedel. Chris couldn't eat more than about a third of hers due to her reaction to the cream.

We didn’t get back to the Pension until around one in the morning.

Bazaar and leave for Vienna.

Leaving for Vienna wasn’t scheduled till 14:30 so we had enough time to finally visit the Grand Bazaar. The three of us spent some time exploring many of the covered ways inside the bazaar itself, then around lunchtime we went outside where there were still more shops ringing the Bazaar itself. I found a hall which had a selection of hardware shops so I dropped in a bought a few minor tools, including a set of fine tweezers. A lot of the wood working tools seemed to be made in India.

We caught the plane to Vienna and by 21:30 that evening we had booked into Pension Neumarkt and took a walk around some of the now familiar streets.

Kaisergruft

At the Schonbrun Cafe. It has been perishing cold. At least for me. We all had "Forestberry Cocktail" tea. I had a "Habsburger" (very humourous, a cheap gimick for a hamburger). Christine had goulash soup and Uschi had a nice chocolate mousse. Christine berated me (twice and probably rightly) for having chips.

This morning we went to the crypt to see all the dead Habsburgs. It is under the Capuchin church, also known as the Kapuzinergruft.
We also stopped into Lobmeyrs. Uschi was looking at a lovely pair of green antique glasses. On impulse I purchased 2 fine glasses.

After Uschi pays for the meal we intend to go up to the Gloriette. We are the only guests along the side of the cafe, the "Winter Garden". We conned the staff into letting us sit in this area due to Christines limited mobility, even though it is meant to be closed. They didn't really want us there as "it wasn't heated" although it was better than outside and the main restaurant was stifling anyway.

While we were sitting there, seemingly hordes of people came to sit in the side section.

1530 at the GlorietteWe all shared a "Sisi Gugelhoepf", I had an "Almdudler" lemonade which was quite nice. Uschi had a white wine Gluehwein and Christine had a red one. I had a sip of them both and I think the red one was better. On the way up to the Gloriette we met another group with a wheelchair. They had a small boy who was evidently recovering from some fearsome burns with some of his fingers gone. Uschi spoke to them for a while about South Australia, and surprisingly I could understand the conversation reasonably
well. I gave the boy a clip on koala.

The sun is now setting and the light is shining through the rear windows of the Gloriette highlighting the decoration on the ornate architraves.

Hotel Sacher and Albertina

It is 1000 and we are in the Cafe Sacher. The decor is extravagant, red plush on the bench seats and fabric panels on the walls. The fabric panels have corded margins. There are mirrors and oil paintings of people prominent in the Sacher story. The menus are supported on little racks, similar to those for newspapers found in some hotel and library reading rooms. The menus also have a potted history of the cafe and hotel. The hotel has been in operation since 1830. As it is the famous cafe Sacher I had "Original Sachertorte". Uschi had apple strudel and Christine had a topfen strudel. With tea and coffee the morning tea came to about 25 Euro.


After the cafe we went to the Albertina. A lot of paintings by many artists were there. Amongst others I saw:



Degas; Two dancers around 1905. This was a pastel done by Degas as his eyesight was deteriorating in latter years.
Monet; The flood of the Seine at Vethueil
Seurat; Locomotive
Renoir; Portrait of a young girl (Elizabeth Maitre)
Klimt; Liegenderand about 4 Picassos.

These were mostly from the Batliner private collection.After that we visited the state rooms. The walls had fabric panel covering like the Hotel Sacher, but much grander. The same fabric was used for the curtains and upholstery too.

The gallery was good but like the modern art galley in Tehran, some of the best were away in storage. Uschi was particularly miffed as she had been looking forward to seeing Durer's rabbit for ages and only a facsimile was on display (and the praying hands too).

Historisches Museen

In the Historisches Museen Cafe (Cafe Nautilus). Uschi had an apple strudel flavoured tea with Gulaschsuppe, Christine had Terra Tulsi Multivitamin tea with Sacherwurstel. These are long, thin (300x10mm) sausages. They are served with senf, tomato sauce and freshly ground horse radish. I had potato soup, "Weine Erdaepfelsuppe". We have been in the museum about 2 hours and have only been around the 2nd floor and vivarium near the entrance. We walked here from the Pension via the Hofburg and the National Library. The Library was closed today so we couldn't go in. The Silver Museum at the Hofberg was about 18 Euros per person, so we didn't go in there either. On the walk to the Hofberg I bought a small container of potato from a Nord See fast food restaurant. It was quite a delicious snack in the cold morning air.
Uschi wasn't too well this morning as she had a bit of a lingering sore throat. We got up very early, still on Dubai time, and had breakfast at 0615. After that we went back to bed for a rest. After getting out and on the move, Uschi felt a lot happier.

In Transit

The Dubai airport has some of the biggest lifts I have seen. Due to Uschis mum, we were parked in the "special handling" area. Many people were asleep in the airport. This is the first airport I have seen with chairs for transit passengers that are a bit like lazy boys. Quite possible to sleep comparatively comfortably in. We left Dubai at 10:08 local time. The flight took us over Iraq, just inside the Iran/Iraq border. We followed the Tigris and passed near to Baghdad.

Touch down in Vienna was 5 and 3/4 hours after take off. The trip to the hotel was under a dreary grey sky even though it was the middle of the day, a bit different to Dubai. After resting in the Hotel for a little while we headed out for an initial look (for me) at Vienna. Cold, dark and lots of Christkindlmarkts. No snow yet, which is a little disappointing. I got my first look at Stephansdom and we went to the Post Office where I bought a post card for Pam and Jack. While we travelled about Christine hadn't dressed properly for the cold.

I was experimenting with a beanie and scarf which made the cold much more acceptable. In the end I gave the scarf to Christine as she forgot her gloves and her hands were very cold. We went back to the pension at about 21:00 and Uschi was a little disappointed as it was somewhat early and we didn't see everything straight away, but we had been up and on the go for more than 18 hours.