Our first stop was the old palace. Quite cool. We walked around the grounds a bit but decided not to go into the rooms to see the silverware they apparently had on display (paying to see silverware? No way!).
There were quite a few statues around, some reminiscent of the club and dagger guys at the castle in Prague. Most seemed to have men fighting monsters of various forms, from small dragons to sharks to eagles, and whatnot.
On the other side of the palace, once we had walked through, was a plaza with more statues and also some ruins situated in the middle. The ruins were pretty much just the remnants of the foundations of old buildings, but the different types of construction showed at least three different building or architectural styles throughout the ages and through the history of the city.
From there we walked, a bit aimlessly, then found our bearings and headed over to the St. Stephan´s church. On our way we walked through high-end shopping streets, peering quickly at the many fountains and monuments adorning them, and running the gauntlet past the numerous tour groups.
We made it to the church which has apparently been under construction for the last thousand years or so. How can something be under construction for that long? It looked just about finished, so what, have they been just updating the scaffolding for a millennium?
We went inside but it was far too packed and there wasn´t really that much to be seen. There were apparently catacombs and a tower climb but neither of us really felt like it. We made our way out and started walked down more streets, getting slightly lost at one point. We found ourselves at the Albertina museum but Sarah and Cooper had warned us against it since most of the works were supposedly just copies and not originals. Meh, I didn't really want to spend money to go see facsimiles.
We made up our lunch around the side of the building, and in front of a very swish looking café restaurant with lots of smartly dressed fine members of society. And, there we were, eating our turkey slices on rolls, ripped open by hand. Good times.
We found our way back to the museum quarter and to the Leopold museum. As we got there it started absolutely pouring. So, we sat dry on some steps for a while and took the opportunity to call Australia and speak to the parents. We finally made our move and went into the museum. Out of the different exhibits that were there we only went to see those on Egon Schiele and the Faroe Island modern art.
Egon Schiele was a fantastic expressionist artist whose reputation in Vienna was only one-upped by Klimt. His work was fantastic, especially the portraits, and in particular those of himself. His landscapes and those of Viennese houses and suburbs were great, almost dream-like depictions of the places from his upbringing and his homes.
The second exhibit we saw was the modern art from the Faroe Islands. I had honestly never even heard of them but they are apparently some islands with descendants of ..... and who produced a vast yet relatively unknown type of modern art One which I think I might have seen before was Culture Club, or a bunch of puffins wearing suits, sitting in what appears to be rows of seats, with a cloudy sky above. Weird but awesome.
Once we finished that floor we headed upstairs and found the café Leopold. It was actually right over the stairs where we were sitting earlier to escape the rain. We had tea/coffee and had a cinparfai with cherry trifle. Wow, abso-bloodly-lutely delicious. It was a bit like a rocky road ice cream (bits of marshmallow) but with a cinnamon taste. The sauce was a beautiful cherry thing, with cherries spread over it.
The rain had cleared by the time we were done and so we decided to make a break for it and head back to the hostel. When we arrived we found a comfy spot in the lobby, grabbed Ozy and updated photos and blogs.
No comments:
Post a Comment