The spires of the Rathaus, Vienna’s magnificent city hall
To me, Vienna does two things extremely well: imperial splendor and art.
We made a little four-day stop here only to break up our travel. We wanted to get from Paris to Cyprus but were surprised to find no direct flights. We hate long days of connecting flights, so I researched all of the places you could connect, and we decided Vienna would make a nice stop along the way. We were here two years ago, and it’s a place that could keep you busy for a long time, what with all the art and imperial splendor.
The weather was not super cooperative here, but in Vienna even rainy days are elegant
Two years ago we made a hotel choice that played well to the imperial splendor side: The Hotel Imperial. And we repeated that choice this time, even though it’s not our typical style of hotel. The Imperial is Vienna’s grande dame, loaded up with sweeping marble staircases, ornate ceilings, and crystal chandeliers. And like last time, we cashed in some Starwood certificates to upgrade to a lavish suite. It’s a splurge that makes old-world Vienna really come alive.
On the art side, this city is also just packed with treasures. And they are not just dusty old works from a long time ago (though there are a ton of those). Twenty years ago, the city introduced the Museumsquartier, a collection of renovated baroque buildings plus a couple modern buildings, that house a whole bunch of new museums, covering all aspects of contemporary art. This huge complex of museums complements the city’s massive collections of more traditional art in places like the Kuntshistorisches Museum and the Albertina. All of this kept us incredibly busy.
I have to put in a special plug for the Leopold Museum, one that I had not previously visited. It was built to house the once-private art collection of Rudolf Leopold, an ophthalmologist who began collecting works by Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, arguably Austria’s most famous painters, in the late 19th century. He bought Schiele’s paintings on the cheap, and the museum now houses the world’s largest collection of them. We spent hours in this place until we were wiped out.
The staircase leading to our room at the Hotel Imperial. Did I mention that the hotel captured old world Viennese splendor?
Imperial splendor all over this town
Jim managed to squeeze in some reading in a lovely park when the rain let up
One of Gustav Klimt’s beautiful portraits, before his work became much more abstract
Klimt also painted many spectacular landscapes
Some of the many eerie self-portraits by Klimt’s protégé, Egon Schiele, who lived pretty scandalously and died at just 28
My favorite haunting self-portrait of Egon Schiele, in front of a Chinese lantern plant
Another amazing special exhibit in the Leopold museum included Lenin by Andy Warhol
We also greatly enjoyed MUMOK, the museum of modern art, which featured an extensive exhibit of musical video productions that is hard to explain but fascinating. Here a viewer enjoys a video of Yoko Ono sort of screeching for two minutes. That may sound odd, but it was somehow hard to stop watching.
Jim actually made it to the Kuntshistorisches museum, where he enjoyed part of the extensive ancient Egyptian collection, including this amazing hippopotamus from about 2000 BC. (Given all the competing museums I did not even make it to the Kuntshistorisches this time, though in fairness to me, I have been there three times before over the past 34 years.)
This Caravaggio in the Kuntshistorisches caused scandal because of a feature that a painter had never before included in a religious scene. (See the next photo.)
Yes, the peasants have dirty feet
The Imperial Hotel also features a rarity in Europe: a bar that makes great cocktails. And in this setting!
Cheers!
On a slightly more downscale note, these Viennese make some pretty great wieners!
