Vienna

Our day began with breakfast at the hotel, which was wonderful—especially the coffee! I have always needed flavoring of some sort in my coffee. Not in Vienna! I added a little warm milk and it was the best coffee I have ever had. The impeccably polite, tuxedoed waiters were pretty nice, too. After breakfast our group met our local guide Susi, and she gave us a tour of St. Stephen's Cathedral. It is equally impressive inside and out. The intricately tiled roof is not original, as it was destroyed by fire during WWII. However, the majority of the church dates from the 1400's. More about the history of the cathedral is included with the photos.

After leaving the cathedral, we had a 30 minute break before heading to the Belvedere Palace and many of us chose to spend it getting coffee at one of the many Viennese coffee houses. Greg and I chose Café Imperial. He was not in the mood for coffee, so ordered a Coke and was delighted when it came with a glass of ice. We were still too full from breakfast to sample the Sacher Torte, a chocolate cake that was invented in Vienna in 1832, but other tour members vouched for its deliciousness. We could have lingered for much longer, but a tour at the Belvedere awaited us. Before leaving, we used the restrooms at the Hotel Imperial. Wow is all I can say. We have never seen such luxurious restrooms. A very elegant hotel, whose elegance was marred in 1938 when Adolf Hitler stayed there during his visit to Vienna following the Anschluss.

Tour Day 10: Tuesday, June 28

Museums of Art and War

Vienna Day 2

We took the tram to the Belvedere Palace, as it is a bit beyond the city center. There are actually two palaces, upper and lower, and they were once the summer stomping grounds of Prince Eugene of Savoy. He had the palaces built in the early 1700s and they were later purchased by Empress Maria Theresa following his death. Today the Belvedere is an art museum containing one of the largest collections of Austrian art, including many works by Gustav Klimt. Having seen the movie “Woman in Gold,” and read the book “The Lady in Gold,” I was particularly excited to be visiting the Belvedere. Although Klimt’s most famous painting is now in New York, his mesmerizing painting Judith I hangs here, and the model is said to be Adele Bloch-Bauer, the subject of the woman in gold painting. After our tour was over and we were free for the afternoon, we returned to the rooms containing the Klimt paintings and lingered. I am not a huge fan of The Kiss, but I did find it more impressive when standing in front of it. There are several beautiful portraits in the collection. Given the biography of the artist and his subjects, and the fascinating history of fin-de-siecle Vienna, being surrounded by these paintings was probably my number one “wow” moment on the trip.

To save time we decided to grab a quick lunch at the museum café. The food was acceptable and we had an enjoyable time sitting at an outside table enjoying the view. Besides, it’s not every day that you get to eat lunch at a palace. We then set out for the Museum of Military History and, wanting to maintain our track record, we got a little mixed up along the way. The directions in our Rick Steves guidebook could not have been simpler, and we actually turned down the right street, but didn’t go far enough the first time. We were again saved by a friendly local. As we passed a couple, Greg asked if they knew where the museum was. The guy whipped out his iPhone and Google mapped it for us. They sent us back down the (correct) street and this time we walked far enough to find it. Not all of the exhibits are in English, but the WWI displays are, and they are incredible. I swear this is true—as we were studying the car that the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were riding in when they were shot, Greg’s phone dinged. It was a reminder that on June 28, 1914 the Archduke and Archduchess were assassinated in Sarajevo, setting into motion the first world war. Yes, my husband really programs random historical events into his phone. So we were standing in front of the car, staring at a bullet hole, on the 102nd anniversary of the event. That was pretty cool. We highly recommend this museum. If you are at all interested in military history, you could spend hours and hours here.

Coffee and Cathedral

We made it back to the city center, stopping along the way at the Academy of Fine Arts, which twice rejected Adolf Hitler. We did not go in, but did sit for a bit in Schiller Park. We also stopped outside the former residence of Adele Bloch-Bauer, the subject of Klimt’s Woman in Gold painting. Her apartment at 18 Elisabethstrasse is directly across the street from Schiller park and the academy that denied Hitler an art career.

We consulted our Rick Steves guidebook to find a restaurant for dinner and chose Caninetta La Norma, an Italian restaurant very close to our hotel. We sat at an outdoor table and enjoyed some great pasta. The restaurant appeared as popular with locals as with tourists. It was very busy and the outdoor tables were pushed quite close together. There was an Austrian couple next to us and it was obvious from how they interacted with the owner that they were regulars. When they got up to leave, the woman leaned over, wished us a good evening and told us we had found the best Italian restaurant in Vienna. We chatted for a minute before they left--for some reason she thought we were British, but we fessed up to being American. It was such a nice gesture and reflective of the friendliness we encountered throughout our stay in Vienna. After they left, an older couple and their friend sat down next to us and they were obviously American. We struck up a conversation with them and learned that they were from Ohio, proving once again that it's a small world.

Fitbit: 22,069 steps, 8.9 miles, 16 flights