Sunday, 21.07. Breakfast in the hotel again, very practical.
Itinerary:
Vienna Museum at Karlsplatz (supposedly a museum of Vienna's history)
Lunch (again at Wild Gasthaus)
Hundertwasser House & adjacent "village"
[Added during the day: walk through the Prater, Donauinsel (Danube Island), Supper]
Vienna Museum Karlsplatz:
Vienna Museum at Karlsplatz: a disappointingly old-fashioned museum. Picture/painting, short description. E.g. "Emperor so-and-so, (year)". Thing, short description "spears from the second siege of Vienna by the Turks". No story, no real "history". I don't know anything about what lead to the sieges, how the people survived, or why the king of Poland came to the rescue for the second one.
At some point, they replaced the original glass windows (pre WWI/WWII) from Stephansdom and given them to the city. They're now displayed in the museum:
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| above is a "Lindwurm" |
Some Austro-hungarian thing:
A strange piano:
If I remember correctly, this is a painting of something that actually stood, and which people would make pilgrimages to:
The special exhibits were much better.
There was one "Wien Aussen" (Vienna outside), photos by a photographer who's on retainer from the museum, Didi something. There were a few main clusters of photos (including a screen looping a large collection of photos) which caught my eye:
- a brothel and the ladies within, going about their prep for the day.
- two traditional turkish weddings (there were 1500 people there for each one!)
- a center for disabled people. The photographer talked about always being drawn to the fringes and the disabled, perhaps in part due to his own handicap (very severe hearing loss when young).
- Yppenplatz and Türkenschanzpark, both very turkish parts of town.
There was a lot of text in this exhibit, the photographer writing about the places and people he chose to photograph, his methods, what he was looking for and trying to do, connecting with people.
The other was "Wiener Typen" (Viennese "Types"/stereotypes) -- the washer maiden, the carriage driver, etc, their histories and how they changed.
Lunch @ Wild Gasthaus. The menu had changed a little (they made a new-ish menu daily, which is nice). This time I had the "Lammstelze", not knowing what kind of part of Lamb that meant. Turns out, "Stelze" is Austrian/Viennese-German for "Haxe" which is ~the ankle. I think we'd say "Lamb shanks". With this delicious lamb (cooked in beer) were rosemary "nockerl" (sp?) -- again, wasn't sure what they'd be until they came out. They were tasty little potato pieces, cooked with rosemary. For dessert, had "Apple-calvados Tiramisu". The waitress said that "calvados" was a kind of pear. I later saw it somewhere as a liquor. Who knows. Either way, the (very not traditional) tiramisu was light, fluffy and amazingly delicious.
In German, one'd say that "Es war ein Gedicht" (it was a poem). :)
After lunch, off to see the Hundertwasser Haus + Village: Hundertwasser was a painter who decided to take up architecture. Well, he paired with an architect and did architecture. Kind of in the vein of Gaudi. I think this house was his first or one of his first. It was interesting, but not amazing. There was a poster in front saying how it was not just Hundertwasser who designed this (and the other buildings) but that he also worked with an (actual, trained) architect (I'm assuming the architect feels a bit cheated of recognition for the houses).
We also walked through the adjacent "village", which is supposed to be built in the Hundertwasser-style. Eh.
What now? It's still sunny and beautiful out. We could go to The Prater, the giant part (with an amusement park on one end). It's much bigger than Hamburg's equivalent (which is also not permanent, it runs for about a month 4 times a year). The Prater has two Ferris wheels!
And the older of the two ferris wheels:
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| with whole cars that you would ride in |
After the Prater and Prater amusement part, we still had time and some hunger. I suggested going to the Donauinsel (Danube Island), look at the sunset, find something to eat.
There was a nice pedestrian bridge with a good view.
This lay between two of the pieces of the Danube Island, so it was pretty quiet (i.e. not on the "main" part of the Danube).
Größere Kartenansicht
There were a lot of restaurants and bars around there at the "beach" .
Once we crossed the bridge, it seemed like every restaurant was a hookah ("Shisha" in "German") bar, along the edge of the water. We walked until we ran out of hookah bars and other restaurants blaring loud music, and ate at the (quiet and nice-looking) restaurant we found there, All'isola . The waiter/manager was very nice and cheery.
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22.07, Monday, last (full) day in Vienna.
The 72-hour ticket for the local transit lasted until 17:50.
Plan: Be back within walking distance of the hotel before this time.
Pictures of the Hofburg:
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| Fiaker (carriage drivers) and their horses (being watered) |
Nearby, an old church, the Michaeliskirche:
And in ~ the same building, the Spanischehofreitschule (Spanish royal/court riding school), through this door/arch:
Trink Wasser! Trinkwasser! -- it's wordplay in German. If "drinking water" or "potable water" were instead "drinkwater" in English, it would be possibly to do the same in English.
Either way, good to be reminded, as it was so hot out; I enjoyed the cloud-thing, which would spray out a mist of water when you pushed the button:
Well, the next tour was in a few hours, so first to the butterfly house around the corner ( Schmetterlingshaus).
I saw something similar (and better done, really) in New Orleans, but this one was ok.
Once that was done, there was still enough time before the tour of the Sissi Museum to get something to eat. We stopped in Café Griensteidl.I had the goulash soup (every restaurant seemed to carry it on the menu) and the "house lemonade". It was alright. What I found annoying was that the waitress had offered a roll without saying that it cost extra (this was the only goulash soup I saw/had which did not have bread included in the price). Also, the rolls were not fresh. :P
Afterwards, a bit of hurry to the 14:00 Sissi tour.
Sissi, Kaiserin Elisabeth, was the last empress of Austro-hungary and during her life was not loved by the people. It was only after her death that they took a shine to her and found the sad story of her life interesting. She was wild and liked hunting and hiking and her sister was raised to be all courtly and to marry the future emperor. He picked Sissi instead. Then she felt like an animal in a cage :/.
She was 172cm (5'8'') with a 40cm (15.75 inches!) waist and never weighed more than 50kg (110 lbs). She had the first modern toilet (in Austria? In Europe? In the palace?).
When she bathed, she usually didn't wash her hair, as it took 4-5 hours of sitting relatively still with silly hair-drying-frames all around her before it was dry. She had her hair washed twice a month, using a mixture of Cognac and raw eggs.
Every day she worked out and had a special room for this.
Even without the washing, she still had to have her hair combed out and braided and done up, which took 2-3 hours a day. During this time, she had someone come read to her or teach her something. She liked learning languages. Outside of German, she knew Hungarian, Greek (old and new), Czsech, French, English (which was really uncommon) and others. She travelled a lot, in particular to Korfu and Hungary.
Afterwards, there was an (included) tour of the silver(ware) chamber/storage place. After(during?) the wars with France, the silver plates and things were melted down to finance it (minted into coins). This started the push of using porcelain and such instead.
Also, we learned that there are 12 pieces of cutlery associated with a plate, to represent the 12 apostles.
Afterwards, back towards the hotel. The Naschmarkt (where we could pick up apples and snacks for our trip to the alps) seemed like a good goal. Also, there were a lot of restaurants there were we could eat.
We ate at Neni . It was an israeli restaurant, as far as we could tell, having a "Jerusalem Plate" and several other dishes mentioning israel. Also, no pork (which isn't that weird in Austria, but would be weird in Germany). We had the house lemonade, which was lemon juice, a lot of mint leaves, and sparkling water.
We also accidentally walked by this, at the edge of the Naschmarkt (Majolkahaus)
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| Majolkahaus, by the Naschmarkt |
Famous, as it was designed by Otto Wagner.
That wraps up Vienna.Here's a list of things I would've liked to have done:
- Rented a bicycle "car" in the Prater (I saw a lot of groups of people biking around in these. They were covered (yay shade) and looked like fun).
- Swimming in one of the open air swimming pools, in particular, Krampfwaldbad, which was supposed to be huge and also have a great view of Vienna.
- Schönbrunn, Schloß inside instead of just the gardens. Also, the associated Zoo Europe's oldest and also one which won a prize for "Europe's best zoo" in 2012.
- Visit Yppenplatz, Türkschanzenpark and Karmelitermarkt (which sounds like a mediterranean version of the Naschmarkt)
- Visit Wündertüte and Finnshop, which sounded like neat shops.
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