3/30
Saturday morning dawned cold but dry, and since Shiri has
described a nicer route for us to run, we decided to go for it. We passed some
of the cuter houses in a nice little neighborhood of Purkersdorf and ran along
the Wien River for a while. After breakfast at Shiri’s place we rode into town
and headed for the Albertina Museum, partly for the exhibits: Netherlands Art,
Rubens to Rembrant, Impressionism, and Max Ernst, and partly for the 50%
discount our boarding passes afforded us! Before entering the museum, we had to
photograph the famous Mozart statue in the plaza (the museum is across from the
Opera House), and ”Roni’s Wine, Cheese and Delicatessen”.
The first exhibit was
a little disappointing, no paintings from the Dutch school, but the Breughel
etchings were crazy and super interesting! But the Impressionism Exhibit was
all I had hoped for and more--what gorgeous art!! The crazy thing is, all of the artwork was from the
collection of one family! I don’t get Max Ernst—the man definitely had issues,
but seeing the vast variety of styles that encompassed the 60 years of his art
career was extremely interesting. Finally, you gotta love a palace, and the
rooms of the French Classicist Stateroom didn’t disappoint. There was also an
exhibit of photographs from a photographer who was known for taking photos of
very plain, industrial-type scenes and supposedly turning them into art because
of their composition (don’t know that I was all that convinced) but we had to
amble through because of the photos of Laguna Beach and, get this, IRVINE!!
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| Creepy Durer Lithograph! |
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| Monet |
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| Chagall |
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| Crazy mirror hall! |
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| Ernst |
On the plaza outside the Albertina was a really interesting WWII Memorial, dedicated to the victims of National Socialism. It was comprised of a number of statues each representing a different apect of the victimization.
Unfortunately, the sun wasn’t shining this time as we left
the museum, and it was quite cold, but we decided to brave the temperatures and
went to the permanent outdoor market, the Naschmarkt (where Yoram tried on
various hats). The market has a variety of ethnic restaurants and vendors
selling fruits and vegetables from all over the world, fish, meat, cheese, and
anything else you could possibly want.
We then went up to the Schönbrunn
Palace for the Easter Market there. Unfortunately, it was pretty cold, and we were pretty tired, so we didn't spend too long up there. Hopefully , by the time we get back to Vienna, the weather will have warmed up a bit, and the sun will decide to grace us with its presence, so we can go back up to Schönbrunn again and enjoy the beauty of the palace and gardens.
I have a dear friend from 30 years ago,
when I lived and studied in Germany, who lives outside Vienna now (to the south
of the city), and we had made plans to visit her for dinner, so that was our
next destination. It was so awesome to see her again! She had visited us in
Ithaca in 1988, but it has still been 25 years since we’ve seen each other (and
she’s NOT on Facebook!) so it was soooo
great to catch up! She was always so much fun—spirited, energetic,
“spunky” (as Shiri described her) and she’s still the same! We had a wonderful
dinner with her and her “man-friend” (from South Africa) and headed home for
the night.
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