We walk into Vienna using mostly the same route as yesterday. A slight variation finds a memorial to a former Gestapo building but I cannot find out anything else about it.
Next we revisit St Stephen’s, deciding to go up the northern tower this time, for a different view, and also we get to see New Pummerin. A 22 tonne behemoth which replaces its predecessor Old Pummerin which fell, causing a bit of a mess in 1937! The new huge bell is only rung 16 times per year as it is considered a risk to the fabric of the tower. We feel that the cathedral is quite messy and nothing like as impressive as many we have visited recently.
Next stop is the a National Library which is found right next to the Riding School. This is a glorious space on the second floor of a relatively recent wing of the Hofburg Palace and has its own entrance. Here an 80m room is packed with 200,000 ancient texts, all digitised and freely available to anyone, however the originals are a visual spectacle. Four beautifully detailed Venitian globes can be found in the central section.
Our next destination is the Albertina gallery which is right next to the Opera House. This is a former Hapsberg palace, in particular for high ranking officers. Now it is a gallery on four floors with a collection of state rooms thrown in for good measure. There is a lot to see, I’m only showcasing a few items. We see Picasso, Monet, Munch, Mattise, Chagall, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and Klimt that we can remember.
In the state rooms we find a particularly striking room where the silk wall covering, upholstery and curtains are all of the same material. We run this scenario by our interior designer friend and surprisingly she approves! Interestingly we find there used to be a set of rooms officially designated as Spanish for the use of the Spanish Royal family.
Opposite the Opera House we see a street-food vendor and order schnitzel and beer for our lunch – it’s just fabulous! We then walk on towards our next destination, St Charles Church.
A jazz band playing nearby is wonderful: Watermelom Man; St Thomas and lots more sound superb. We intend to view the church but paying yet another over large entrance fee just winds us up too much so we don’t bother. The mirror image photo of the exterior is good enough anyway.
Walking past the Stadspark we check out a few statues of notable Austrians, some of them famous composers, and then set off back home. We cannot resist the temptation to walk through Praterplazt and enjoy the strident screams of innocent folk who have paid good money to be scared to death on the many insane rides here in the amusement park.
As we near home we turn left past the cannabis farm we have seen numerous times now, amused that it has become a significant location in our Viennese life. Talking about navigating Vienna, we can confirm that predestrinaism is the lowest form of life, we are below cars, trams and cyclists in that order, and only exist if we are lucky enough to not be killed by any of the above predators!
Dinner tonight is seerved early once again, we don’t really understand this, although given that some customers have an 03:00 departure perhaps there is a small degree of compassion? For the rest of us it’s a tad early be we make the most of it, and after-all there’s a lot of kissing and hugging to be done!
Dinner is veal salad and beef broth & liver dumpling, rib eye and pork fillet, apricot dumpling (awful) and chocolate?? (lovely!)
Packing (by hubby) takes 30 minutes and then we are done, ready to hit the upper deck with support from the bar for the rest of the evening.
