Today was Museum Day. We checked out of our hotel early and brought our bags to the train station where we would be leaving from late in the day and stored our luggage in the lockers. Everyone else had the same idea so it took a little while until someone came and retrieved their items to open up a locker. We grabbed a quick breakfast and a sandwich for lunch later at the local baker stand in the train station. The lady behind the counter apparently liked us and gave us our very own cloth bag and calendar.
Subway stop in Vienna.
Off we went to the Museum Quarter, which is a collection of approximately 7 buildings all with different collections and focuses. We visited the Leopold Museum first. There were a few works we really enjoyed including Gustav Klimt. He is one of Brandon’s favorite artists. Unfortunately a lot of his work was lost in fires and bombings during WWII. The collection was great and we could have spent a lot more time there. (Well, there was one exhibit we quickly exited out of because it was pretty disturbing. No need to gross you out with details.)
What a great museum when it allows its surroundings to be a work of art.
Next we walked in to the Modern Mumok building. We didn’t think we had time to go through it with our schedule. Now I wish we had. The little we saw from the lobby and gift shop looked interesting.
We finished off the Museum Quarter with the Architecture Museum who had an exhibit on Glenn Murcutt. If you’re interested you can read more about him here. Click me. His houses are amazing spaces with a wonderful theory about how the house and it’s inhabitants should exist.
A scale model with a drawing overlaid etched on plexiglass.
Museum of Architecture Vienna
The Belvedere is Vienna’s most renowned museum. It consists of two buildings, the Upper and Lower, separated by a large landscaped garden. They are extremely strict about their no pictures policy and we could only snap a few of the building. I heard a guard explain that the no photo policy is not because they don’t want people to have the images but rather to keep people moving through the space and allowing visitors to observe the art without a horde of snapping cameras around.
The Lobby of the Upper Belvedere.
Stair at the Lobby of the Upper Belvedere.
The garden between the upper and lower Belvedere.
Exterior of the Upper Belvedere.
Part of an exhibit.
We finished off our day with a return trip to Café Hawkela and were able to meet the grandson of the legendary owners Leopold and Josephine who is now running the cafe. He was extremely friendly, humble and seems to want to continue the tradition of his grandparents.
We had just enough time to gather our bags, grab a quick bite to eat from the train station and make a mad dash for a train leaving for Salzburg to enjoy dinner on the train. We arrived back home (so it felt) in Salzburg only to discover it had gotten really really cold. We learned why quickly the next day…
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