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Day Twenty Three [09.07.2016] Today was a complete travel day, we made our way from Vienna all the way to Zillertal, and decided to try our hands at climbing up at Ginzling. It's a lovely, quaint village up from Mayrhofen, through the Ginzling tunnel, a sight to be seen itself! It's only a small village but a popular spot to visit for walkers with all it's peaks to climbs and walks to explore from village to village. The Naturehaus is key to any visitors stop in Ginzling, it acts as information centre, a little museum, and toilet stop for many. The staff are all incredibly helpful and friendly, and the building even has a library and free wifi you can use. The opening hours aren't quite as long during the winter but in summer they're open from 8am-ish til 5pm-ish. It's a crucial stop for our days as we use the toilets, are able to refill our water bottles and use the wifi there when needed, it's certainly making our stay so much easier! Ginzling has a few hotels, B&Bs, a cafe and even a cheese shop, but no village shop for amenities, you can though order bread at the Naturehaus. We spent what was left odour day exploring Ginzling and the bouldering up in the woods, it's safe to say that we're pretty excited

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Day Twenty Two [08.07.2016] After a few busy days we decided to take a more chilled out day and make our way to a camping store to pick up some more gas, and hopefully some hand sanitiser. For the most part we've found wet wipes are much more favoured over hand sanitiser, which has made it incredibly hard to find, but our main aim was to find gas as we'd stocked up on wet wipes just in case. The walk to the camping store took us through new ground for us and we say the Chinatown area of Vienna which also had a lovely market full of interesting fruit and veg stalls, hippy clothes stores and health food stores. I've always been quite interested in health food stores, and different diets so often find myself looking at ones whilst I'm away. I think working in a health food store also has further grown my interest. It was funny to come across brands back from England, and interesting to see the mass of different interesting products available. There's so much more tea! And vegan chocolate! One thing I've found in general from being in both Germany and Austria is that they use much more tofu based veggie and vegan foods, which for me is pure happiness! Even in the supermarkets there'll be an array of veggie and vegan options, I realise that it is getting better in England but it's still pretty limited to Quorn in supermarkets, which personally I'm not the biggest fan of, or health food stores which are admittedly much better with an array of different options not limited to Quorn, but tofu, seitan, tempeh etc. Maybe I'm just a health food nerd! One thing we did find was that the toilets in the market were to pay for unless you're a guy and you can use the free urinals. The toilets however do have to be paid for. Honestly, I found this massively unfair and refused to pay (I usually refuse but this frustrated more than ever), so waddled off carrying my bladder to find free toilet...which we found just a few 50 meters or less on the next area of the market which that day was being used as car parking. They weren't the cleanest, but they had toilet roll, it was a free toilet for both genders and had a place to wash your hands. So, don't get caught out if you're there! It's only a few minutes walk further up! We did eventually get to camping store which was well stocked and had both gas that we needed (the typical blue can, and the elderid gas) for about the same average price you find it in England. After the hour and a half walk in the blistering heat we decided to take a leisurely walk back to the van and stop in the little park we found on the way to eat some fresh pineapple, so even though it was a much more relaxed day, we got lots of waking in and saw more of Vienna by foot.

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Day Twenty One [07.07.2016] I awoke not feeling too well after not getting enough water at the festival the day before, even despite making sure to hydrate plenty as soon as we got back on the night. A slightly easier day was needed! So, we decided to take on only as many art galleries we felt we could at the time, this resulted in two galleries! Along with all the walking, perhaps not the most laid back in many people's eyes, but it was a relaxing day and we took it all at an easy pace. The Belvedere We mainly went here for the Klimt but also saw quite a few interesting portraits and of course, Schiele,who definitely classes as one of the main reasons I wanted to visit Vienna, to finally see a large quantity of his work in person. There's quite a few different tickets you can get to cover however much or little as you want to see. We chose the standard Klimt tickets so that we could see the permanent collection, and especially, the Klimt. This also allowed us to see the Chapel and current installation painting Yan Pei-Ming, and some of his other pieces around the building. I've always been a strong believer in seeing artwork first hand, something which was strongly pushed when I was at art school, so seeing such a broad range of artwork by artists I admire has been absolute treat. I'll include a few of the paintings which were on display which captured my eye:

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'Dr Hugo Koller' 1918 Egon Schiele The perspective is taken from slightly above, the painter standing, observing his sitter, Dr Hugo Keller. He appears somewhat uncomfortable which is added to by the angle of which he is portrayed. Schiele has portrayed him surrounded by and reading books, suggesting an avid reader. A title or job can make one assume a lot of a person, a doctor, a well read person, the portrait depicts him as exactly that. The rich colours and detail of Keller in contrast to the background allow him to stand out quite strikingly. He appears deep in thought, the rich colours add to this feeling, rich in knowledge. I quite liked seeing Schiele's portraiture in person, I'd previously seen lots of his mixed media works in his famous style, so it was interesting to see his commissioned portraits and more traditional looking works that only showed hints of his usual dark and edgy style

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'The Painter Bronica Koller' 1921/22 Karl Hofer This painting took my attention mainly for all the detail in the face, and then the basic shapes of the body and form. Her striking elements captured, and then highlighted by a vibrant red hat perhaps, covering her hair? The viewers eye is taken straight away to her face, the artists focus in the painting for whatever reason, we can only assume.

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‘Dr Franz Martin Haberditzl’ 1917 Egon Schiele

Painted a year earlier than 'Dr Hugo Koller’, this painting in contrast looks less chaotic and much plainer, especially in the background. The books instead appear to be held by the artist at the bottom of the painting. The sitter is again sat down, but this time, rather than in a comfy, soft chair, Dr Franz Martin Haberditzl is sat upon a wooden chair, he looks stiff and his posture on the chair looks less than comfortable. He holds a paper illustrating flowers and plants which alludes to him being something to do with botany

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'The Three Gorgons' 2013 Gerold Tusch Gerold Tusch's intervention in the upper Belvedere grabbed my attention straight away, the vibrant red, pinks and skin colours stand out instantly and draw the eye. For me, they looked like baroque vases full of intestines or tentacles, I've added a photo of the accompanying information below.

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Leopold Museum The Leopold Museum can be found in the museum quarter of Vienna along with several other museums and galleries. It is home to the world's largest collection of Egon Schiele, as well one of the largest collections of Austrian modern art, including the likes of Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele (of course!), Oskar Kokoschka, and Richard Gerstl. Entry costs €13 for adults but there is concessions for students and retirees, etc. And the best news of all for us was, it's open til 9pm on a Thursday! The Leopold Museum is well worth a visit, and has easily been my favourite gallery I've visited in a long while! Even if you're not too into art, the museum quarter is a fantastic bustling area to visit, full of cafes and bars making it a lovely, thriving social hive. As you can tell, I was very taken with this section! One of the most exciting things for me was walking into the current exhibitions and finding a full exhibition of Berlinde de Bruckye's work! I was thrilled! I first came across Berlinde de Bruckye's work in a book a few years ago on my BA(hons) and stumbled across some of her work a year later whilst in London, so it seems quite fitting that the same thing should happen again. This alone made the Leopold Museum worth visiting for me! The works spanned the early 2000s and ~2011 for the later works in the exhibition. The majority of the work was her usual quite disturbing sculptures complimented by drawings. The drawings added to the exhibition but felt a little bit weaker than the sculptures for me, but a lot of this is down to how you personally feel space should be used in an exhibition. This is not to say the drawings weren't good enough to exhibit, I just felt the sculptures were stronger, and the drawings felt more there to add to the sculptures than as works in their own right. De Bruckyre's artwork depicts mostly 3D fragments of the human form, the figures appear vulnerable and fragile which is emphasised in their pose, fragmentation and materials used. The use of the exhibition type cabinets gives the pieces a strange voyeuristic feel, especially the tall cabinets with the figures who look to be holding each other intimately, and the other figure holding themselves almost cowering in the corner. It feels wrong and intrusive to be observing such intimate characters. The figure laid in the exhibition box feels more to be looked at, it feels more grotesque, more anatomical, to be viewed. Even so, all the figures feel vulnerable. This alone made the Leopold Museum worth visiting for me! But there was plenty more to see! I've been a fan of Schiele's artwork since I was first shown his work at High School by my art teacher whom I still regard today as one of the main reasons I became so passionate about art and chose it for my studies through university. The Leopold boasts the largest collection of Schiele's work and definitely does not disappoint! It displays many of his drawing alongside his paintings and a history of his life. It does also house Klimt's work, amongst other Austrian artists from the early 20th century, which shows the Austrian art scene transform from the Wiener Secession to expressionism. So, if you're in Vienna for any of these artists I'd definitely pay a visit! It had been our anniversary a few days before and we'd decided to celebrate it in Vienna and go for some food on one of the nights. We decided on a little veggie place called 'I Love Veggie Burgers' which as you can tell did a selection of veggie burgers, but also salads and wraps. I decided to try the seitan burger which came with chips and salad which was super tasty and a really good portion size, being enough to fill me up but not feel over stuffed! We finished our lovely day by walking back to the hotel a slightly different way and found Vienna to be alive with friendly nightlife, a complete social hive with restraints, bars, gelateria's, and even cafes open. Vienna has a vibrant feel and a bit of something for everyone, it's somewhere I could easily visit numerous times! It is however pretty pricey in general so I think we'll be saving some more before our next visit.

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Wini Tatsch 6b+

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Day Twenty [06.07.2016] We'd booked this straight away when we decided to go travelling round Europe and finally the day had come! Two Days a Week Festival in Vienna! We'd gone with the plan to see Silverstein, Gogol Bordello and Flogging Molly, it was a line up we couldn't resist, and seeing the other bands was either going to be new music we hadn't heard before, but also an added bonus to a line up we were excited about. The festival started after midday so we had a chance to have a lie in, a relaxed breakfast, a chilled out walk round the area and a laid back lunch before making our way down to the festival for our first band, Silverstein. As usual, no bottles were allowed into the venue which looked to be a big, empty industrial unit with the big side doors open. It provided an excellent hide away from the sun but also an outdoor area for sun worshippers, smokers and for chilling out between sets. The venue itself was great, it even had lots of bins around which were brought into the crowd between sets for people to use, there was even cleaners working between sets! One of the major downsides of the venue and set up of the festival was the lack of free drinking water, when we asked staff if there was any drinking water they said to either buy some there, or use the toilets. So we went to use the bathrooms tap water which with one sip came across as totally undrinkable, it was not ok, it did not taste healthy to drink. Silverstein did an ok set, they didn't seem that well known to the crowd who were pretty still, but this seemed to be expected with there position on the bill. Next up was Irie Révolutés, a band from Heidelberg in Germany with a reggae, ska, punk, hip hop, electro sound. They cover a lot of political and controversial social issues, and support the project 'Respekt', which fight agains prejudice, racism, homophobia and sexism. They discussed quite a few big issues at the gig including immigration and the current state of politics in Austria, and followed their personal statement of denouncing social ills whilst spreading positive energy. Their lyrics are in German and French, and albeit my German isn't the best, I got the gist of a lot of what was being said. They were incredibly well liked and got the crowd really hyped up and went absolutely insane, it was great to see! The main band I came for was Gogol Bordello, and I was super psyched to see! They performed their usual good fun set, with lots of energy and lots of their earlier songs. It was Callum's first time seeing them, and although I've seen them a few times, it's only been in the UK. Plenty of other fans enjoyed them and danced away merrily, some people however actively did not like them which made for quite an uncomfortable experience. This was something we'd found the entire festival so far, with people only waiting for the main act, Five Finger Death Punch, and reacted quite negatively to most of the other bands and their fans. For the most part you learn to shrug off these kind of experiences, it's a mixed line up, people are there for different people and that's perfectly fine. The only thing that really bothered me too much was a group of guys who were repeatedly slapping the backs of my arms when I wasn't looking, until I stood and stared at them til one of the guys dragged the others away. I hadn't been bumping into them repeatedly nor ruining their enjoyment of the show by being in their way, talking loudly or being rowdy, I was simply stood, watching and enjoying the show. Strange! By the end of the Gogol Bordello set, we both found ourselves quite dehydrated, and this was the point we found out about the water situation. Perhaps an over reaction, but by this point we felt a little bit fed up, we'd seen the bands we'd gone for, and despite wanting to see Flogging Molly too, dehydration and the slight irritations with a few in the crowd helped us make our decision to call it a day. We were happy we'd seen the bands we wanted, and we felt it a good point to leave before we felt the experience had been more negative than enjoyable. So, all in all, we were happy with only a few slight irritations.

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The Imperial Crypt, Vienna, Austria.

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Day Nineteen [05.07.2016] Our main aim for today was to explore Vienna by foot, and we did just that. The Doppio Trend Hotel is a little out of the centre, but only takes about 25 minutes to the Belvedere, and then another 10 to 20 minutes to Museum platz or the big shopping areas of Vienna. On our walk in we came across this huge fountain in a small park platz, it was wonderful, and a great cool break, as when the fountain sprayed, the wind caught it and cooled us with a mist of cold water, it was glorious! And much needed on such a hot day! We continued our walk into town once we'd reached a more manageable temperature, and headed onwards to the Imperial Crypt. Hidden away beneath the Capuchin Church in a square behind some large shopping streets, the Imperial Crypt (Kaisergruft), also known as the Capuchin crypt, is the final resting place of the Habsburg lineage since 1633. It holds approximately 4 full rooms of sarcophagi of the Habsburg Royal line, some as big as a small caravan. The crypt holds 149 Habsburgs, 12 of which were emperors, and 19 empresses and queens, and still has burials even now, with the last burial being Otto Habsburg, who was laid to rest with his wife. The entrance fee was only €5.50 each which made it one of the cheaper things we planned to do in Vienna, with many tourist sights being the double the price per person or more. It was well worth a visit if you're into this sort of thing, or from a historical context, and the pure detail in some of the sarcophagi is absolutely stunning. https://www.wien.info/en/sightseeing/sights/imperial/burial-vault

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Maria Theresia's sarcophagus. The Imperial Crypt, Vienna, Austria.

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Day Eighteen [04.07.2016] "What are you cooking?" "Porridge!" "Hahaa! Are you English?" I think we're both a little uncertain to whether we appeared to be English from the cooking of porridge or our number plate, haha! We spent the day doing the last leg of the journey to Vienna as well as stopping off for supplies for whilst we're there. Despite staying in a hotel, and although we haven't got a kitchenette or cooking facilities there, we're cooking down by the van in the car park and eating up in the room. We've been using little camping gas heads whilst we've been away and they work fine, don't take up too much room, and are usually reasonably ok to find in Europe. So, I think now is probably the time to say that I have a Fitbit, and honestly, I may be a little obsessed with it. I was easily getting the recommended 10k steps a day before so reset my target up to 12k which I get the majority of the time. As you can imagine, long driving days can be a real pain to step goals, but no matter what, I still do my best to get 12k, and today was exactly one of those days as I explored the hotel, it's fitness facilities and paced around until I got 12k. No restless legs for me tonight! Also, I think we may have caught the sun a little in Silvretta! #vanlifetanlife

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Fuschl am See, Austria

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