Day Fortynine - Jul 9, 2012
Vienna, Austria
Daily Didactic
Our day started early in our wonderful little studio flat in the Prater neighborhood, which sports no curtains and great sun in the morning. We had a little breakfast and hit the metro to the Belvedere Palace. Our apartment is about 25 minutes out of city center, so we'll be getting to know the Vienna metro better than any so far. The Belvedere houses the best collection of Viennese artists, of who Gustav Klimpt is the rock star. This is where you get to see Klimpt's "Kiss", a biggie. The Belvedere was Prince Eugene of Savoy's (conquerer of the Ottoman's) palace and is now entirely art museum. Super big and, in addition to the locals, you run into walls of Monet and Degas paintings. All in all, a better use of the building than imperial palace we think. A beautiful day, we decided to walk to city center and check out St. Stephen's Cathedral. After getting moderately disoriented, Theresa pulled a recurring trick and walked up to a hotel front desk and asked for a map. A few minutes later we had a great map with a lot of circles. Shortly after, at the end of Vienna's tourist row, we found the towering cathedral towers. We looked inside for a minute or two and realized the closing time for climbing the South Tower was nigh. We headed to the tower entrance, paid our euros and headed up the narrow winding 343 step staircase. Another great semi claustrophobic tube to the top, Brian likes these in the same way he likes narrow roads on road trips. Theresa is doing better. The views are alway worth it, and the vista of Vienna was spectacular. We wound our way down after a bit and decided the Cathedral was going to take back seat to finding some dinner. We'll be back. We headed for the somewhat hyped Karmaliter market, but when we got there is was a handful of restaurants in a bunch of closed permanent buildings. We've come to expect different. On the way home (walking through the Jewish district) we found a nice little organic market, loaded up, and walked back to our flat for a great little pasta meal. Watching a pretty remarkable thunder shower out the window, we decided we like Vienna and called it a great day.
Today's Photos
