Playing in the Rain in Vienna

Woke up to the pitter-patter of rain on our hotel window and decided to nix our run and instead have a lazy morning resting in bed. Rolled out of bed a few hours later deciding that today’s weather made the perfect day for visiting the Kunsthistorisches Museum, housing one of the world’s finest collections of historical relics and paintings. All bundled up, we stopped into a café and enjoyed our daily cappuccino and croissant before finishing our wet stroll over to the museum.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum was commissioned by the Emperor of Austria-Hungary to publicly house the fine art collection of the Habsburg Royal Family. Construction of the beautiful structure began in 1872 and was completed in 1891. Walking the building itself was nearly worth the price of admission as it was constructed to the highest standards including the sandstone façade, lavish marble, gold-leaf ornamentation and beautiful ceiling murals.

 

Our tour started with a really impressive collection of Egyptian artifacts. This was probably Sam’s favorite part of the museum as he enjoyed seeing the immaculately preserved sarcophagi built of stone, wood, and other materials. It was quite amazing how much detail the Egyptians put into their burial tombs.  

After the Egyptian room, we walked in a chronological matter to see some impressive statues, reliefs, and other random items from the Roman and Greek era. In addition to the finely sculpted busts (both shoulder and heads as well as bosoms) and full size statues, we really enjoyed seeing the everyday tools and ordinary items that were displayed. These included hair clips for women and cutting tools for around the house.

At this point in our trip we were getting a little burned out of taking pictures and to be honest, what are we going to do with a bunch of photographs from inside a museum. I guess we should have asked the crazy tourists who were taking pictures of nearly every piece they came across. With that said, we will describe a few more of the highlights but sorry, no more pictures in the museum.

After seeing the museums ancient collections, we walked up the beautiful marble staircase and were overwhelmed with gallery after gallery of paintings. Some of the most famous works we saw were by Raphael, Rembrandt and Velazquez. The paintings were very lovely but after walking the collection for a couple of hours, we were ready to make it back outside and see if the weather cleared. 

To our delight, we were only hit with very mild periods of sprinkling and quite comfortable temperatures as we made our way back to our hotel. Along the way we stopped by a street cart for a tasty Turkish Durum Wrap Doner Lamb Kebab that couldn’t have better matched the appetites we built-up through the course of the late morning and early afternoon. As we were walking back devouring our wraps we stopped to shoot a couple pictures at the Austrian Parliament building. 

We hung out in our hotel for a few hours resting up and having another little picnic of wine, cheese, salami and hummus. Reenergized for the evening, we headed over to the neo-gothic Imperial Hall in Beethovenplatz for our Vienna musical experience. On tonight’s agenda was a Mozart and Strauss performance accompanied by opera singers and ballet dancers. 

The same architects who built St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the Vienna Town Hall (pictures in yesterday’s blog) designed the beautiful Imperial Hall that housed tonight’s musical performance. Like so many of the spaces we visited throughout Vienna, this structure was one where even if you didn’t enjoy the music you could just swivel your head and be impressed by the design and detail of the impressive building.
 

 Fortunately however, the musical performance was outstanding. We were a little hesitant about the show since we bought the tickets from a vendor in the park dressed up in Renaissance garb, but I guess that is the typical way most tickets are purchased. Our other big concern was Teah and how she would handle her first concert. Our nerves concerning her making noise and disturbing the audience were a waste as she behaved better than we could have hoped. As a matter of fact, the Germans next to us, the Swedes behind us, and the Lebanese that we met at intermission were pleased that we brought Teah to the show. Sam went to go get some champagne at intermission and when he came back Teah was in the arms of a Lebanese woman who saw Teah and quickly asked Jennifer “could I hold her?” The whole experience was great and what better way to wrap up our time in Vienna than to enjoy classical music in a beautiful concert hall next to the Beethoven Plaza.

 

Our night ended as we walked through the city center grabbing an ice cream to share and making our way back through the narrow streets to our hotel. We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Vienna and we are excited for tomorrow’s journey to Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic.