Vienna Day 3 and back home to Prague!
June 10 & 11
We went to the top of the stairs first and saw the rare coin collection, which appealed to my love of Latin--there were some denarii and drachma, which I had never seen before. They were really a lot smaller than I anticipated!
See? Teeny. There were quite a few masterworks in their art gallery on the second floor, which was kept in 2 wings. I was surprised by how many Dutch paintings they had, but they also had a few of my favorite painters hung here, even if they weren't always my favorite paintings by said painter. They had paintings by Rubens, Titian (or Tizan in German), Caravaggio, Bruegel, Raphael, Tintoretto, and Vasquez. I think it is safe to say that we spent a LOT of time in this museum.
A Rubens...
Just a Rembrandt self portrait....NBD.
My favorite Bruegel :)
A little Caravaggio
There was even a whole wing dedicated to Antiquity. They had more sarcophagi in one place then I have ever seen, as well as some really cool busts of Greek and Roman rulers. I took this pic of Agrippa for my brother :)
After the museum, we went to find the restaurant I reserved for our true Wien version of the Wienerschnitzel and on the way found my last Mozart site!
Boom. I now think I have seen every Mozart site I possibly can, except places he toured! I felt so accomplished that I had to buy an inspirational tiny Mozart bust. I'm sure he magical Mozart powers will get me through this next school year :)
We found the restaurant and then decided to check out this festival that was happening downtown just beside St. Stephan's Cathedral (the restaurant was right on the other side of the church!). Apparently because Austria is so Catholic, Pentecost is a national holiday and has a small fair, including live music and a merry-go-round. I bought a small wooden ornament (since apparently I have started collecting Christmas ornaments on this trip) and got some really good beer at a stand! I was standing in line talking to Jamie about the festival and the beer we were about to get when the guy in front of us turns around and said that we were getting the best beer in the whole festival. Score! My beer-dar knows what's up.
We headed over to our reservation at the Figlmuller early and had the best dinner! So I am usually again eating veal for moral reasons, but I had to have the traditional version of Wienerschnitzel while I was in Wien. Now the veal came in two smaller pieces where this restaurant is famous for a schnitzel bigger than your plate, but it was pork. As usual, I ordered a side and shouldn't have, but their potato salad sounded great...and it was. I was surprised by how light the food was! You would think that a fried piece of veal would be really heavy, but it wasn't greasy at all. I would definitely get it again! Although, probably the pork version instead.
After dinner, we headed over to the Prater, a giant park in the middle of the city, to take an evening ride on the Wiener Reisenrad (a giant 212 ft. tall ferris wheel that was built in 1897). This amusement park was surprising! It was quite a bit larger than I anticipated, since I was thinking it would have just a couple of rides. This place had full blown roller coasters! I was glad that we did not visit this place sooner, however, because Kurt tapped right into his inner 5 year old and wanted to go on everything and I hate riding rides. I have enough anxiety in my life, thank you. So Kurt went on this crazy swing thing that went up like 70 feet in the air, which sounded pretty and fun (no up and down roller coaster hills!) but I didn't have time to process it in my brain and let the anxiety go. So Jamie and I video taped him (he's the one with the Italian flag) and waited for Andrea to get there. We then went and got our tickets for the Reisenrad! Kurt didn't want to go and neither did Adrian, so they waited for us at the bottom. There was a cool display in the first room that had small models of the park and the wheel. Some I understood clearly (like the construction of the wheel) and others I didn't get/couldn't read the plaque for. And here are the views from the wheel :)
What a great trip :) It may have been hot, but it was full of amazing experiences and history! I can't wait to come spend more time here, sometime in my future.