1) Having slept in until almost 9 yesterday, I was determined to be somewhere by 9 today. And I determined that that somewhere would be the Upper Belvedere. At 9 AM.
2) And . . . and I was there, third in line behind two Asian ladies with Zouave-style sun hats. But it started when I couldn’t sleep past 6 AM and actually stretched out in the bathtub for a long soak. Just like England, Viennese bathtubs are narrower than I am, but they are long.
3) I left my dress shirts at the front desk to be cleaned and pressed. “They’ll be back tomorrow evening, it’s a national holiday today.”
4) Gyygle isn’t always intuitive, and I got mixed up a couple times walking from the subway station (right by the main railway station, so at last I know that HBF stands for Hauptbahnhof on all those train notices). And all the cafés I walked by were closed, and almost no one was on the streets. National holiday? The neighborhood? The café part concerned me, as I had yet to have any coffee.
4a) A healthy feeling of familiarity came over me as I walked into the grounds, as I had been to the UB before, on that trip in 2014. The gardens between the UB and the Lower Belvedere are lined with buxom sphinxes, and I certainly remembered the one near the entrance. Some of them have discolored breasts from ahem undue fondling.
4b) I strolled through the gardens behind the UB, noticing the temperature of the morning, and weighed down by the heavy shadows of my many sins. (It was that sort of day.) But about 8:40 I got into line, and watched it fill, mostly with a large Asian tour group.
4c) I did notice a quite beautiful Woman Younger Than I, with beautiful black hair swept up, wearing a cocktails-at-five ensemble of long and wide black trousers with a midriff-baring satin top with one long puffed sleeve and one bare arm. Very Ingrid Bergman in Notorious, but a little much for the breakfast hour.
5) And . . . they’re off! The door opened promptly at 9 AM, and because I didn’t bolt upstairs first thing, I didn’t get that impossible moment alone with Vienna’s biggest attraction, Gustav Klimt’s The Kiss. When I got there half dozen or so viewers were already enraptured (or taking selfies); I’m sure it got worse as the day went on, but nothing like the Mona Lisa Madness of the Louvre.
5a) There were other beautiful Klimts there, particularly landscapes, which I remembered from before and still love. And what else was there? A fantastic Edvard Munch painting of men at the beach; Kurzweil’s portrait of Bildnis Bloch-Bauer (obviously a relation of the more famous Adele), a van Gogh landscape, a really active composition of Samson pulling down the pillars of the temple, Egon Schiele portraits, and a few other things.
5b) And the Messerschmidt heads! I did remember them from the last visit, and also seeing some in Prague. Unique works of art from the late 18th century, genius experimentation by a master.
A Messerschmidt head.
5c) A couple galleries included works related to art and artists impacted by Austria’s political situation in the 1930s, even before the Anschluss. Photos were forbidden here, but having reread The Exiles earlier this year, and other WWII history — and having seen that Max Beckmann portrait only yesterday — it was both interesting and poignant to see and feel what this group of creatives experienced. Some were able to flee and succeed abroad; others could not.
5d) A couple ground floor galleries were devoted to medieval/Renaissance religious art.
5e) Selfies in museums can be a mine field — and I ought to know, since I take so many. But I would not stand so close to a painting that my hair would get caught in the varnish, as I noticed one woman doing with Egon Schiele’s The Family. I was kind of anxious about the art.
5e.i) Also, please do not take a phone call while your nose is two inches from the surface of a painting. One of the guards had to reprimand a young man who had just yelled “Hello!” into his phone.
6) By this time I was “perishin’ for real vittles,” not to mention coffee —Art makes you hungry — and I retreated to the elegant sun-filled little café in a remote ground floor corner. My melange coffee came along with my “kaiser” breakfast plate: a croissant with jam and honey, and a good hard roll with slices of ham and cheese and a cube of butter. It hit the spot, and it was great to take the weight off my feet awhile, even if I was putting it on my waistline.
The Upper Belvedere with waterfall.
7) A long sloping garden with fountains and waterfalls connects the UB and the LB, which was my next stop. The day was getting hot (I think it was 83 F), so a stately pace kept me from glowing too much. A German family asked me “Can you make our picture?” while handing me a phone, and I was happy to oblige. I also noticed a very pale young woman with very pale long blonde hair in a very pale long pink dress working with her photographer by one of the side fountains. Influencers will influence.
8) The big deal at the LB was Radical! Women*Artists and Modernism 1910-1950. A female photographer named Claude Cahun was a big part of this show, and until this year I knew exactly nothing about her. So the friend who gave me No Place Ever Just Disappears did me a big favor, because Claude and her work and her life in France was one of the seven chapters of that book.
Leonor Fini may have painted the Mother of Barbarella . . .
8a) One of the most helpful aspects of this or any exhibition of multiple artists was, in the last room, a multi-wall display of all the artists, alphabetically by last name, with head shots, dates, locations, and even couple quotes. A powerful pantheon when seen together, and a helpful aid for simpleminded viewers like me.
Portrait of Natalie Barney by Romaine Brooks.
8b) Aside from that, they also had a conservation exhibition of Klimt works, Klimt: Pigment and Pixels, to review how his works are being conserved and investigated. Here, as in other Viennese galleries, the subject of one of the beautiful portraits on view had been murdered during WWII.
8c) Finally, almost as an afterthought, the LB stables had been converted into a gallery for a passel of medieval religious artworks, hung densely together for an overpowering effect.
“Here, try the arancini.”
9) Then it was time to take one last turn through the gardens and move on to something else, on this very hot day. The exit was through a portico at the far end of the LB; when I walked in I noticed a photography setup at one end . . . and a bride and groom across the way. So basically this passthrough was being taken over for a photo shoot. A couple large tour groups weren’t going to let it bother them, and I don’t blame them. The photo party seemed to take it all in good grace.
10) I ended up tailing that tour group, mostly college students, to a large and beautiful WWII memorial and fountain. On a hot day, the fountain mist was a whisper of relief.
11) And then suddenly I was at the Karlskirche, that distinguished Baroque church so important to the Hapsburgs. Paid my money and entered a lofty space — very oval, very sunlit, very majestic. But not very prayerful, which was less to do with tourist chitchat (of which there really wasn’t much), but the prerecorded Baroque music in the background, which was just a wee bit too heavy on the brass.
11a) Looking up, I did a double take when I saw what looked like a tangle of white neon suspended from the dome of the church. Later I learned that it’s part of the church’s Contemporary Arts program. But at the time I thought, “Zeuschen, don’t aim the shower of gold in here. Danae has left the building!”
11b) I climbed the spiral staircase to the organ loft, which provided a powerful view of the church, and the church treasury. But I knew better than to climb up any further. Oh no, not after Sagrada Familia in 2022!
12) Gyygle was not exactly clear in how to get where I was going next, but I did get it worked out, and I did get into one of the most famous buildings in Vienna, the Secession. My Friend Who Knows Vienna told me that it’s sometimes called The Cabbage, and I get it! That gilded floral dome . . . there’s nothing like it.
12a) The famous Klimt murals at the very bottom of the building are well worth the trip. While some of the other exhibitions didn’t compel me, there were a couple works that really captured my attention, particularly a preprogrammed grid of church votives; aspects of that exhibition left me feeling very 2001: A Space Odyssey.
12b) It’s worth noting that almost all the museums in Vienna have flung out their rainbow banners, flags, and (at the Albertina) staircases for Pride Month. It’s refreshing and affirming.
13) And from here, a hot walk brought me to the Café Sperl, highly recommended as being off the tourist grid, and it is. I sat inside on a banquette of very worn old damask and enjoyed an aperol spritz and a slice of sachertorte and two bottles of sparkling water. I was seated near three old billiard tables, two of them ready for a game, the third covered with current newspapers for patrons to read.
My view during dinner.
14) Once I got back to my hotel and had a concrete NAP, I went off to that little neighborhood restaurant I passed by the other night because it was too full, Café Eduard. You cannot know the relief there is in a sign that reads “Please wait to be seated.” And I did, and I was, and I had my first schnitzel of the trip, along with some lovely arancini, under a large tree on a gently sunlit evening. The restaurant had a real family vibe, particularly with a baby who had just learned to say “BA BA BA BA BA.” Baby was actually adorable, and the father who had charge took the opportunity to walk about the little square with Baby. Just . . . it was just enormously cute.
