June 23,
2017 Vienna: three museums writing on train Hamburg to Amsterdam
We had a 13:30 appointment at the Liechtenstein Summer Palace. You can only visit the Palace on a guided
tour, and tours are only offered two days a month, so we timed our visit to
make this tour. I had contacted the
Palace to confirm that our painting was on display, and they even told me that
it was located on the eastern staircase.
So we went to the Belvedere Museum in the morning. We of course had visited this museum on our
prior visit, but that is the appeal of museums, there is always something else
to see. The problem of course is that I
took too many photos again, and this was just the first of three museums that
we were visiting today.
After we finished with the Belvedere we were off to the Summer
Palace. We found it easy enough, but it
wasn’t clear where you entered as all the doors were locked. We sat down at an outdoor café in the
courtyard for coffee and a sweet roll. I
wandered around until I found someone who told me that they open the front door
a few minutes before the tour starts.
There were eventually 30-40 people on the tour. They split the crowd into the German tour and
the English tour. The young lady who led
the English tour was great. She
obviously knew the art, but she was enthusiastic and funny. The good news was that we started off on the
East staircase! The bad news was that
the painting there was “very” close to the one on our list, but it wasn’t
exactly our painting. It was by the same
artist, and it was a painting of a horse, just not the RIGHT horse. We are counting it anyway, because we get to
make the rules. The palace is just that,
a palace, lots of gold everywhere. The
Donald would be right at home. The
current owners are a continuation of the Habsburgs. The family has been collecting paintings for
centuries. Lucky for both of us they do
not allow photos of the paintings in the rooms.
Because the Horse painting was in the staircase I could take a photo. The newest addition to the collection was a
yuuge piece of 17th century (?) furniture that the owner bought in
~2007 for, get this €27 million! I guess
the Habsburgs haven’t lost much since the breakup of the Holy Roman
Empire. The paintings were displayed
without labels. The owner wanted it
shown as how you would display paintings in your home. I don’t know if anyone actually lives here,
but it is large enough that they could.
Our next stop was the Kunsthistorisches Museum. We have seen six of the eight 1001 paintings
there, and the two we haven’t seen are not on display, but I’ve got a few
paintings on other lists that I’m tracking, Sue not so much. I truly went overboard here. All day I took over 200 photos! I may not finish editing that album until we
get home.
We have changed trains are on the final leg to Amsterdam. Vienna is a place you could walk around all
day just to see the old buildings. One
of my many problems is when I photograph something I feel compelled to find out
something about the building, statue, etc. and that takes time. I’m sure you are tired of hearing this so
I’ll stop.
We fly home tomorrow, so I am going against all my instincts and
posting the remaining albums WITHOUT curating them. You will see all of the photos I take, when
we get home I’ll have time to clean it up.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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