AUSTRIA: Vienna – World Class Museums & Music

Always sad to leave Salzburg behind, but there is much that awaits in Vienna. There are so many worthwhile museums that it is impossible to cover the best of them in one visit. It seems that the more you visit the more you uncover to be done. From the palatial Museum of Natural History to the diminutive 3rd. Man Museum, you will not lack for cultural diversions.

WOMBAT’S CITY HOSTEL – Naschmarkt

LOBBY

Naschmarkt – Big market filled with all sorts of vendors. One aisle has a large variety of indoor/outdoor restaurants.

 

 

Strolling down the boulevard taking in the sights.

 

 

MARIA THERESA SQUARE

MARIA THERESA STATUE

 

 

 

MUMOK – MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

 

Alain JAQUET – Portrait de L’Homme – 1964

Jorrit TORNQUIST – Opus 31 -1964

Andre BEAUDIN – Paul Eluard – 1947

Oskar SCHLEMMER – Abstrakte Figur – 1921

Pablo PICASSO – Femme Assise a L’Echarpe Verte – 1960

Albert Paris GUTERSLOH

Fritz JANSCHKA – Bildnis Wolfgang Hutter – 1947

Carry HAUSER – Selbstbildnis – 1921

MuseumsQuartier Wein – Museums District

GOETHE

 

 

 

IMPERIAL PALACE (Hofburg)

 

One small setting out of numerous silver settings. These are gilded versions.

FINE PORCELAIN

A glowering Franz Josef at the foot of a staircase that can’t hold a candle to that staircase back in Salzburg at the Mirabell Palace.

Sisi Museum

This is a dress worn by Elisabeth the Empress of Austria who became known simply as “Sisi”. In time she became a tragic figure who could never find happiness due to the constrictive demands and responsibilities of court life. She was especially tall (5ft. 8in.), slender, and beautiful throughout her life regardless of her four pregnancies. She kept a gym in whatever palace she resided in and followed a strict diet which enabled her to maintain the same weight throughout her life. She was assassinated in 1898 at the age of sixty, and immediately became the thing of legends.

 

 

                                           ALBERTINA MUSEUM

 

Pierre-Auguste RENOIR – Portrait of a Young Girl (Elisabeth Maitre) – 1879

Auguste RODIN – Large Danaide – 1885

Paul SIGNAC – Venice, The Pink Cloud – 1909

Paul SIGNAC – Antibes, the Towers – 1911

Claude MONET – View of Vetheuil – 1881

Claude MONET – The Water Lily Pond – 1917-1919

 

Edgar DEGAS – Two Dancers – 1905

Amadeo MODIGLIANI – Young Woman in a Shirt – 1918

Henri MATISSE – Parrot Tulips – 1905

Wassily KANDINSKY – Inner Alliance – 1929

Marc CHAGALL – Sleeping Woman with Flowers – 1972

Georges BRAQUE – The Sideboard – 1920

Pablo PICASSO – Still Life with Guitar – 1942

Pablo PICASSO – Woman in a Green Hat – 1947

Joan MIRO

Joan MIRO – Birds and Insects – 1938

Max ERNST – Under the Bridges of Paris – 1961

Victor VASARELY – Markab-Neg – 1953

Rene MAGRITTE – The Enchanted Domain – 1953

 

 

 

 

 

          ANSELM KIEFER – THE WOODCUTS

Anselm KIEFER – The Rhine – 1993

 

Anselm KIEFER – The Starry Sky Above Me and the Moral Law Within Me – 1997

 

 

 

 

                                   HABSBURG STATEROOMS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WOMBAR – Hostel Bar

 

Sculpture on the corner of a bridge. Walking to the Hundertwasser Museum.

 

 

 

Hundertwasser Museum -Kunst Haus Wien

Fountain with water flowing upward in three points before falling down.

 

Friedensreich HUNDERTWASSER – La Fusee Vegetale des Anciens Maitres – 1956

Unfortunately, photography was prohibited in the Hundertwasser exhibit, but I had a shot from another gallery so you could at least get an idea of what his work is like. Below is some environmentally conscious artwork that was in another area of the museum.

 

 

                             MUSEUM HUNDERTWASSER

 

HUNDERTWASSER VILLAGE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3rd. Man Museum

This museum is dedicated to the 1949 film noir starring Joseph Cotton, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard. This striking shadowy thriller was filmed expressionistically and is a paranoid story of social, economic, and moral corruption in a depressed, rotting and crumbling, 20th century Vienna following World War II. It is one of the greatest British thrillers of the post-war era and was voted the #1 British film of the 20th. century by the esteemed British Film Institute. Set entirely in Vienna, this film is the passion of the curator of this museum who runs it with his wife. See the film before traveling to Vienna, and make sure you have a Saturday in town because the museum is only open regularly on Saturdays. Sometimes they add another day here and there so be sure and check their website.

Inside the gift shop, they have all sorts of paraphernalia as well as posters and original lobby cards from the film. Afterward go to the Hotel Sacher, featured in the film, and have their renowned Sacher torte in the Sacher cafe.

 

                             NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

 

 

Homo Ergaster – “Turkana Boy” age 12 – 1.6 million years old

 

Wooly Mammoth

 

Meteorites

 

Large Meteorite

Mineral Displays

Enormous Quartz Crystal

More large specimens

The holy grail of prehistoric sculpture awaits in the beckoning sanctuary marked Venus.

The famed Venus of Willendorf.

 

 

Tasmanian Tiger – Was driven to extinction in 1936 when the last specimen died in captivity.

Whale Shark – The world’s largest fish

Coelacanth – The world’s oldest living fossil

Earthrise

Volcanic Io with two eruptions visible. The closest of Jupiter’s large moons, Io is the most volcanic object in the Solar System.

Saturn in all its glory

Frosted Mars Dunes in Winter – Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter – November 25th. 2006

A far from natural Natural History Museum. This 17th. Century building blows away the New York Museum of Natural History but I think New York’s exhibits surpass this one except for the Venus of Willendorf.

What a palace, and what a way to exit Vienna! Until next time when I pull another Salzburg and Vienna one-two punch.