Vienna - Day 2

After our lie-in we went downstairs to partake of the complimentary hotel breakfast. We've gotten used to disregarding hotel breakfasts due to their lack of originality and insanely high prices, but we went for this one as it was reputed to be one of the best in Vienna. Well done to the Hotel Kaiserhof! The breakfast was a nice mix of bread, pastries, fruit, cold cuts, cheese and warm items. We were well fortified for our day by the time we left.

Our first stop was Stephansdom, or St. Stephen's Cathedral, which sits on a large plaza from which several good shopping streets radiate. We thoroughly enjoyed our walk over because the architecture here is very impressive. Each building is unique and the mix of modern and older styles is very visually appealing. Each building, no matter its style, also has extra adornments like painted walls, window boxes, gargoyles or statues. As you walk down a main street you peek down the side streets and see all these unique buildings and usually some type of grand building or monument at the end. It's really quite cool.

St. Stephen's was under serious reconstruction, so we didn't get to see all of it, although the scaffolding was covered in tarps that showed what the restored wall underneath would look like. Fortunately we could still see the roof which is made up of patterned tiles and was quite pretty. Inside it was not too different from most of the the other major cathedrals we have visited, with one major exception - the addition of colour. They had covered the large windows with long strips of brilliantly coloured plastic which had the effect of throwing purples, greens and oranges all over the church. It was otherworldly and I quite liked it. We didn't have the guts to head up either of the two towers as although it wasn't as hot as in Florence, it was very humid.

We went down one of the major shopping streets towards the Hofburg. It was a really nice atmosphere. Touristy, but still authentic, with beautiful buildings and enough, but not too many, people. Fiona bought a pair of shoes at a Salamander shop.

The Hofburg was the Imperial Residence of the Habsburgs, who ruled the Holy Roman Empire and later the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is a massive complex of buildings with what seems like a dozen or so museums and tourist attractions. Things we didn't go see - the Lippizaner Stallions and the horse riding school, the imperial treasury and the papyrus museum. After taking a few snapshots of the statues outside and the horses waiting for people to fill their carriages, we headed into the first attraction - a three-headed monster that consisted of the Silver Room, the Sisi Museum and the Royal Apartments.

The Silver Room was an assembly of all the Habsburg's silver and porcelain and it was about as interesting as room after room of gold plates and silver knives can be. Don't get me wrong, there were definitely more than a few items that were well worth gawping at, but we weren't stopping to read every description or listen to every anecdote about table settings on the audio guide. Some items we did like - a few very fine silver bottle hangers so that everyone could know what was in an opened bottle or jug, and the interesting nugget that some of the items in the museum are still used at Austrian state functions.

The next phase was the Sisi Museum, dedicated the Empress Elizabeth, known to everyone as Sisi and, apparently, for reasons we have yet to discover, beloved by all. She married Franz-Josef and was Empress for quite some time, but never really liked the gig. Most of her quotes were of the "woe is me, I have to put up with this terrible life of opulence" variety, which doesn't garner much sympathy in my book. Her husband sounded like a pretty decent guy, one of the first absolute monarchs to take on the role of a public servant. Apparently he worked 16 hours a day, taking audiences with the public and meeting with ministers. I'll need to find a book to do some more reading on both him and the rest of his Habsburg clan.

The last stop were the Royal Apartments which were similar in taste and style to those we saw in Versailles. By this time we were developing an appetite, so we breezed through a little quicker than we probably should have. I guess knowing that we were going to visit Schonbrunn Palace, the secondary palace of the Habsburgs, the next day meant we could afford to skip through some of the boring bits.

We did some wandering around the Hofburg, taking in the scenes and the statues - the one of Prince Eugene of Savoy was particularly impressive - before finding a nice cafe for lunch. The actual lunch was nothing special, but the dessert was a delicious torte. The hardest part was definitely choosing just one from the fine menu of several dozen.

Suitably refreshed we walked all the way around the massive complex (we hadn't planned it too well) to see the Great Hall in the library. I would definitely recommend this to anyone. The library is awe-inspiring, and not just for the thousands of extremely old volumes. The decor was suited to a six century imperial dynasty - which is to say that it was the exact opposite of understated. But it was still cool - there were secret rooms hidden behind book cases and grand spiral staircases to get to the higher shelves and the second floor. There was also an ongoing exhibit talking about all the cultures and nation-states that were part of the Empire. It was a miracle it all hung together as long as it did.

Our final stop for the day was the Kunst Historisch Museum, which is essentially an art history museum. It sits right next to the Natural History Museum, which is built as a mirror image to echo the whole art versus science debate. The guide book listed it as a must see, and it did not disappoint. The first exhibit is the building itself which is all marble and probably more opulent than it is good for one building to be. Even having visited the Louvre and the Uffizi, I felt like a country bumpkin, walking around with my mouth agape.

The museum itself is split into two sections, one of paintings and another of ancient statuary and Egyptian artifacts. We started with the paintings. The rooms were nicely separated by different schools of art and the collections were very impressive. We saw some very nice Raphaels, a room full of Caravaggios, another room full of Ruebens, and everyone's favorite portrait artist - Holbein. There was a special exhibit of Jan Fabre's work hanging throughout all the rooms, which we initially dismissed. But when we went in for a closer look and found out his large, blue curtains were actually silk covered in (wait for it ...) ball point pen that we found an ounce of respect for his madness.

We only had an hour left when we came to the Egyptian and Greek exhibit. The assembled sarcophagi were astonishing in their condition and extravagance. The rooms holding the old Greek and Roman statues were also magnificent, with beautiful bas-relief mouldings and ancient mosaic floors rescued from old villas.

We thoroughly enjoyed this museum and agree it is a must-see for any art lover visiting Vienna. We're deciding on exactly where it ranks in our world top 5, but it is definitely up their with the Louvre. Given the quality of the art, the layout and the lack of Louvre-sized crowds, I would say that right now it probably has the edge.

We left the museum and walked back through the very sunny streets of Vienna towards the hotel. At one point a large procession of cyclists passed by, all in varying states of undress and unruly-ness. It was a little weird. It being only 6pm we found a wine bar to pass an hour or so before settling down to a nice dinner at a Vietnamese noodle house. The schnitzel will have to wait for another day.