Today's pictures can be found here on Flickr.
Slept in a bit and went into town to see the Lippizzaner Stallions at the Spanish Riding School. They have a performance this weekend and I was hoping to see some cool stuff at their regular morning practice, but it was mostly just warming up, walking around, and a few things like prancing in place or side stepping, but only occasionally. In the arena, five horses practice for 30 minutes, then they leave and are replaced with five more horses. This goes on for 2-1/2 hours, and people are free to leave when they want. I stayed for a little more than an hour, seeing two full practice sessions.
Then I had the final two Hofburg sights to see (which were closed yesterday), the Treasury and the New Palace Museums. Those are each €12, or you can get a combo ticket for €18 which also includes the Kunsthistorisches Museum, or really three museums for the price of 1-1/2. In theory, I would cover all three in the next six hours, and it pretty much worked out like that.
The Hofburg Treasury is all their most important and valuable items – the scepter, orb, robes, and crown of the Habsburg monarch from the coronation, unimaginably gaudy (Baroque, Gothic, and Classical styles) pieces of all shapes and sizes made of gold, alleged religious relics (a piece of the True Cross, a nail, and the spear that pierced Jesus’ side), the world’s largest emerald, thousand-year-old Holy Roman Empire regalia, medallions for the Order of the Golden Fleece, and other religious garments. Quite a collection and again, it’s good to be the king but when your reign is over, all your stuff will either be in a museum or made into one.
There was a slow but steady drizzle all day, forcing me to get my umbrella out for only the third time (London and Prague). Good thing today was planned for all indoors stuff and yesterday was the outdoor walking tour.
The New Palace Museum was actually a collection of three smaller museums in one building: Roman ruins of Ephesus, medieval armor, and musical instruments. Together, they took about 2 hours to see. The Ephesus wing had Roman-era ruins, statues, friezes, and other artifacts similar to what I’ve already seen so far on this trip, but the highlight (for me) was the otherwise unassuming statue of the goddess Diana, which came from the Temple of Diana there, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. For those keeping count, that makes two of the Ancient Wonders that I’ve seen so far, the other being the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus in London. The Arms & Armor Museum has a huge collection of medieval armor from across the Habsburg empire, the largest collection I can recall seeing – hundreds of suits of varying types for men (and boys) and horses. The final room held musical instruments from the Middle Ages up through the 19th century, tracing the evolution of stringed instruments from the lute to the vioin and keyboard instruments from accordion to harpsichord to piano. Interesting stuff, including Beethoven’s clarinet and Brahms’ piano, but something I wouldn’t have seen if it was an exhibit on its own. Across the Ringstrasse is the Kuntshistorische Museum, which is Vienna’s Louvre regarding paintings. Lots of Old Masters paintings by Titian, Caravaggio, Rubens, Vermeer, and Rembrandt. Paintings take up the top floor, while part of the bottom floor (that wasn’t closed for renovations and prep for a new exhibit) had Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts, but I was running out of time (the museum closes at 6) and didn’t get to pause in any detail for these. I figured once you’ve seen Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts in London, Paris, and Berlin, it’s generally not something new. Paintings, however, are still unique (unless you count Rembrandt’s few dozen self-portraits that are hanging all over the place).
Outside, I stopped at the statues of Mozart and Goethe in the nearby Burggarten park on my way to the Opera House. I had no idea what was playing, but for a €3 standing room only ticket, I couldn’t go wrong with seeing anything. Tonight’s play was La Traviata. I got there about an hour before it started, ate a sandwich I had with me, and then found my spot at the rail, which wasn’t too bad (I only had to lean a bit to see around the guy in front of me on the stairs). Of course, the opera is sung in Italian, but the translate-o-trons all around me were set to German so I had no idea what was going on. I left shortly before intermission, when I had time to walk around the halls of the Opera House that were deserted. One amazing thing about the opera here in Vienna is that they put on a different one every night. This was the second performance of this particular production of La Traviata, and the place was sold out, from the SRO tickets to the €250 seats. So I didn’t understand and didn’t stay for the whole thing, but still, I can say I saw an opera at the Vienna Opera House. Still hungry for dinner, I found a place that was still open (many places close at 7, which I don’t get – it’s prime tourist area so why close early?) and had a plate of spaghetti and a beer, then caught the metro back to the apartment from Stephensplatz.
Today's pictures can be found here on Flickr.
(Originally posted 10/19/11 at 10:54am, Munich)
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