Vienna, Day Two

I'm feeling better today (9/30), but I'm really congested and stuffy.  You know what I mean, I'm not that achy and I think my fever has broken - I'm just tired and I have a leaky nose and chest-clearing cough.

The Vienna Opera House - along the Ring-Route tour

I started my day with a very decent breakfast at my hotel -- included in the €88 per night.  From there I decided to do the almost unthinkable -- use a Rick Steves product.

Rick Steves offers a free audio tour app for your smartphone, and you can download free audio guides.  One such guide is a tram tour of Vienna, along the "ring-route."  Vienna used to be walled, but when the walls were taken down, a wide boulevard - the Ringstrasse - was created around the city center. Many of the cool things to see are situated along that boulevard, so it seemed to me to be a good way to get oriented.  The tour took a little over an hour (the audio tour itself is about a half-hour, but you start and stop it as you arrive at or depart tram stops) and involved transferring from one tram to a second line.  It was a good, basic introduction to the attractions of the city, delivered in Rick Steves' slow, overly-pronounced, talking-to-a-child voice.  Overall, though, not bad and some decent information.  It was not time wasted, and it allowed me to sit rather than walk.

 

The tour began and concluded at the Opera House. A quick ten minute walk from there brought me back to the Museum Quarter and I decided to take in one of the best of the lot - the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Fine Arts.)

You are assaulted by beauty upon entry into the museum. This is the main staircase to the exhibit halls. I'm pictured in a victory pose over my vanquished foe. Clothing is optional in the museum. 

The museum is home to spectacular paintings from the 11th century forward, as well as impressive Greek, Roman and Egyptian collections. 

  

This next set of photos is from the Egyptian wing, but first I feel a family obligation to post this warning:

Some explanation: my Mom has the distinction of having been kicked-out of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Why? She couldn't restrain herself and simply had to touch the mummies. She nearly got kicked out of the White House, too, for touching the wallpaper. 

 

Many mummies (all under glass, Mom), sarcophagi, hieroglyphics, statues and burial accessories. Even a fascinating display of mummified animals, including a huge, mummified crocodile. Couldn't take a good pic of that because of the glass and the way it was positioned in the display. Overall, lots of cool stuff plundered from Egypt. 

 

The Greek and Roman holdings consisted of statuary, pottery, weapons, and jewelry. Very swanky stuff. 

I spent much of the day at the Kunsthistorische Museum, and it was time well-spent. From there I wandered the food stalls that were set up in the plaza in front of the Rathaus (town hall) and I had an early dinner (lunch was in the museum cafe). I could have squeezed more sights in today, but I didn't feel up to more walking around and I wanted to save energy for my last day in Europe, tomorrow. I headed back to the hotel, took a hot shower to try and help clear my congestion, and went to bed. 

Karl-Schweighofer-Gasse 7, Neubau, Wien