Travel – Page 28 – The Bald Heretic – Short, bald dude with a goofy beard

Vienna – Day 3 – Part 2

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The second half of day 3 really drove home the fact that Vienna is an amazing city. When I first suggested we come to Vienna as part of our plans to visit Prague we didn’t really know much about it. I just wanted to take a full two weeks to travel and didn’t think we could fill that time with just a trip to Prague so I thought we’d append the Vienna component just to flush it out.

Cynthia as really not that sure, and honestly was unenthusiastic overall. But after being here a few days we’re both sold and both admit we’ve not scheduled enough time. We’ll be headed to Prague on Monday the 13th which means one more full day before we have to says goodbye.

We went out for a walk and again, the opera was being played on the screen behind the opera house. We made our way to the city hall where we found that more opera and symphony was being played on giant screen set up in front of the historic building.

Not only that, but there were food vendors selling everything from Chinese food to Mexican food as well as beer, wine and plenty of Austrian food. And this wasn’t a cheezy festival setup. These food vendor were super clean and the food was really good. They sold wine and beer in glass glasses! We bought two glasses of Austrian wine and the guy poured them into real wine glasses and said “just leave the glass anywhere when your done.” Unbelievable! Back home there would be broken glass everywhere. Here, it was just the way they did this sort of thing.

Mmmmmmm, Ferrari! Not sure what this was about, but it looked cool and was only protected by velvet ropes.

After we had taken in this event we walked down to the Hofburg Palace where there was some kind of Austrian harvest festival going on. We walked into a tent where there was a band playing and dancing and singing revelers were jumping about and generally acting crazy.

The music for the event was provided by these fellows

The highlight was when they played Achy Breaky Heart in German.

Cynthia and I were just dancing around and enjoying the revelry, not really sure what was happening but not really feeling like we weren’t welcome. In fact, Cynthia commented that if she had herself 4 line dancers she’d own the party. I suspect this is not far from the truth.

A magical evening and one that has sold us on the city of Vienna.

One more full day and then off to Prague.

Vienna – Day 3 – Part 1

Today we just wanted to take advantage of the sunshine and walk around some of the big sites. We had breakfast at Cafe Mozart and then made our way toward the The Vienna Secession.

Also known as the Union of Austrian Artists, it was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian artists who had resigned from the Association of Austrian Artists, housed in the Vienna Künstlerhaus. This movement included painters, sculptors, and architects. The first president of the Secession was Gustav Klimt, and Rudolf von Alt was made honorary president. We didn’t go inside as we were mostly content to have a day of walking and we had plans to see the larger Klimpt collection housed at the Belvedere.

As we were waling down the street I noticed a sculpture and remarked to Cynthia “Hey look, a statue of The Mona Lisa. As we got closer I noticed the statue had a beard and mustache.

Still looked like the Mona Lisa but obviously it wasn’t. Then we found the plaque describing the piece. Turns out this was a sculpture by Subodh Gupta who is known as the “idol thief.” This piece was called “Et Tu, Duchamp?” and was, indeed, The Mona Lisa with a beard. Apparently the reference is to Marcel Duchamp’s “L.H.O.O.Q.” piece from 1919 in which Duchamp took a postcard featuring the Mona Lisa and drew a beard and mustache onto it.

Moving on we came across this magnificent building

We just loved the giant owl and all the smaller owls along the roof top. As we were marveling and shoting pictures I noticed a sign that indicated that this was The Main Library of the Vienna University of Technology. Coolest library EVER!

From there we found our way to the baroque St. Charles Church.

In 1713, the Black Plague swept Vienna, and Emperor Charles VI made a vow: if the plague left the city, he would build a church dedicated to his namesake, St. Charles Borromeo. St. Charles was a 16th-century Italian bishop famous for ministering to Milanese plague victims. The emperor’s prayer was answered, and construction on the church began in 1715. The Baroque master Johann Bernard Fischer von Erlach did the original work from 1716 to 1722. After his death in 1723, his son took over and saw the project through to completion in 1737.

After St. Charles we walked over to The Belvedere Palace. Another fantastic example of baroque architecture, it is a very large complex with a beautiful garden and a wonderful fountain in the middle.

After we strolled through the garden we took a break at the cafe for some lunch and then went to see the Klimpt collection in the Upper Belvedere. Sadly, no photography allowed. Got to see The Kiss and Judith in person which was pretty impressive.

After that we hiked back to the hotel, stopping (again) at Cafe Mozart for coffee and desert.

Vienna – Day 2 – Part 2

After our wonderful day at the Schönbrunn Palace we were feeling pretty good and just a little tired. We made our way back to the hotel to take a load off and consider our options and it wasn’t long before we were back out pounding the streets toward our next destination. We made our way over to the Haus Haus, a very cool and very modern building plunked down in the middle of town amongst building with a much older pedigree. In fact, Haus Haus is directly across the plaza from St. Stephen’s Cathedral and this juxtaposition alone makes the building somewhat controversial amongst the Viennese.

Here, as you can see, Haus Haus has all the earmarks of your modern buildings. Mirrored windows, curvy surfaces and all that.

Haus Haus

It really does seem out of place.

But something really cool happens when you walk past it. The surrounding building are reflected and distorted in the mirrored surfaces of Haus Haus causing the building to seem to morph and change. The further along you walk, the more it undulates and changes.

Haus Haus

This was a fun building to photograph. Move a little to the left or to the right and the scene changed quite a bit. The above detail shots are my favorite and I used the 3 shot HDR treatment to pull out the detail and for dramatic effect.

After this we walked around outside the cathedral and then to the Danube River which, for the record, is not even remotely blue. We didn’t stay there long but I was struck by some of the graffiti which was quite elaborate. Especially this one where the monsters seem to be menacing the couple in the lounge chairs.

Graffiti

We’d been walking most of the day and we were wiped out. We went back to the hotel again to take a load off before going out to grab some dinner. We had decided to go back to the same Italian restaurant we had eaten at the night before. BIG MISTAKE! The place was crowded but the waiter remembered us. This seemed a good thing and he said he would have a table for us in about 5 minutes. 10 minutes later we had a table. Then we sat. And sat. About 20 minutes later he brought us some menus. 20-30 minutes later he took our order and we didn’t end up with our food in front us for quite some time. All in all we were there two hours before we ate. The food was good, but that was just ridiculous.

To make matters worse I got a phone call from the company that cleans our pool. They said the maintenance guy could not get the pump to turn on. The pump was actually repaired before we left so I was hoping it was just a malfunction. But I was worried there was some other problem like a power outage or something worse. Fortunately I was able to reach our friend who is watching over the place while we’re out and he verified everything was ok.

So, to sum up. Great day except for the poor service at the restaurant for dinner and the stress waiting to hear our house was ok.

Two more days in Vienna. I’m voting they be more like the morning than the evening. Fingers crossed!

Vienna – Day 2 – Part 1

Today was all about going to see Schönbrunn Palace. That and sleeping in too late. Apparently we’re more tired and jet lagged than we thought. We got up around 10:30 and got dressed and got a bite to eat and then headed to the metro to catch the subway train to the palace. All in all, pretty simple.

Schönbrunn Palace

Schönbrunn Palace is a former imperial summer residence and now belongs to the public. Most of the site can be accessed for free but if you want to go inside the actual palace that will cost you. We paid for the access but decided to skip the actual palace tour as they would not allow photography or carry a backpack. I was fine with no pictures but my backpack has all my camera gear and I’m not leaving it with the coat check girl. Not going to happen. Nope. But the tickets got us access to the Gloriette and some other sections so it was a good deal.

Schönbrunn Palace

I was glad for my wide angle lenses, but in truth there is so much wide open space that you could easily get far enough back to get everything in the frame. We walked into the first garden which is located off to the side of the palace and there’s a panorama terrace. This was shot with the Sony 24-70mm lens and i got just about the whole thing in a single frame.

Schönbrunn Palace

Back to the main palace grounds with your back to the palace and looking across The Great Parterre you can see the Neptune Fountain and beyond that, The Gloriette.

Schönbrunn Palace

The Neptune Fountain is simply magnificent. And GIANT. The pool below the fountain is a great tourist barrier and allows for some great photos.

Schönbrunn Palace

What’s even cooler is that you can climb up into the back of the fountain and look through the cascading water back to the palace.

Schönbrunn Palace

It’s really wet back there and when a breeze kicks up it send water everywhere. I braved the wet to get this shot and it was worth it.

From there it is uphill via winding paths to reach The Gloriette which is built on a man made hill that is some 60 meters high.

We climbed up to The Gloriette and availed ourselves of the cafe that is there and had something to drink and to eat. After that we used our ticket to gain admission to the panorama view from the top of The Gloriette.

Schönbrunn Palace

A spectacular view

Schönbrunn Palace

I did take this opportunity to break out the Nodal Ninja and shoot some panorama frames. I will be stitching them together later to see if I had any success.

Vienna – Day 1 – Part 3

After relaxing for awhile in the room we headed out to find an Italian restaurant that Rick Steves mentioned in his book called La Norma

Cheers!

It is a great restaurant and we’ll likely go back.

After dinner we headed over to the Vienna Opera House with the tripod to get some extended exposure shots. As we were passing by the back of the opera house we noticed that they were showing the performance from inside on a giant screen. La Bohème as it was being performed, free to anyone who cared to pull up a chair and watch it. The opera house even provided chairs.

Free Opera!

Vienna is a city that loves and promotes classical music and opera, that’s for sure. Cynthia was blown away. We both agreed that this was one of the coolest things we’ve ever seen.

We moved on from there to setup the tripod and the wide-angle lens and this is what I came up with

Free Opera!

I’m not completely happy with these and will bring out another lens and try again. These just seem a bit soft to me.

We walked back to the hotel as we were fairly exhausted at this point, but I did snap a few shots on the way.

Wurst!

Tomorrow The Schönbrunn

Vienna – Day 2 – Part 2

We took the subway out to Wien Meidling railway station to go ahead and purchase our train tickets to Prague for Monday. The subway is clean and fairly easy to navigate so we didn’t have any trouble except that somehow we managed to get off one stop too soon coming back and had to hoof it a bit further than we would have liked.

Having the train ticket secured we were able to confirm our driver in Prague who will pick us up at the train station and drive us to our apartment. Apparently, taking a cab from the train station in Prague is a dicey proposition and should be avoided. Having a driver pick us up takes a load off our mind.

After taking in the crown jewels and the crypt we had planned to go to the Kunsthistorisches Museum, but the sun had come out and it was so beautiful outside we opted to skip it and go for a walk instead to get some outside photos.

We were walking down the street when I saw this

The Third Man

Movie buffs may recognize this as the front of Harry Lime’s apartment from the film “The Third Man” featuring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli and Orson Wells. I recognized it immediately, despite the scaffolding.

We walked over to the The Vienna City Hall, only to find that they were in the process of setting up for the Vienna Film Festival. This included putting a giant movie screen smack dab in the middle of the city hall building.

Vienna Film Festival

From there we walked across the street to the Burgtheater

Burgtheater

And then across the street for a much needed sitdown and snack break at the legendary Cafe Landtmann, the preferred coffee house of Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler, Peter Altenberg, Felix Salten and Emmerich Kálmán,

Cafe Landtmann

From there we walked back along the Ringstrasse back to the hotel to recombobulate.

Vienna – Day 2 – Part 1

We woke up a little late, around 9:30. I guess we needed the sleep. After we showered and got dressed we found our way to Cafe Mozart for some breakfast. I love these cafes! The waiter all dress in coat and tie and everything just seems a little “upscale” but casual at the same time.

We had what the menu called the “Large Viennese Breakfast” which was coffee, a soft-boiled egg, some rolls, a glass of OJ and some deli sliced ham and cheese. It was pretty good.

Our plan for this morning was to visit the Imperial Crypt, located below Capuchin Church which, since Since 1633, has been the principal place of entombment for members of the Habsburg dynasty.

It is a VERY creepy place. Dimly lit and full of dead nobility.

The Crypt

It was a very interesting trip through time.

From there we headed over to the Imperial Treasury to see the crown jewels and other artifacts of the Habsburg Dynasty.

Crown Jewels

There are some fantastic treasures in this space. Photography was a challenge here as well as in the crypt due to dim lighting.

Crown Jewels

I won’t bore you with too many details. Just a few photos of some VERY noteworthy artifacts. These, to me, were three of the most impressive items on display.

Crown Jewels

In this one case we have the Imperial Cross (center) that housed a piece of the true cross (on the right) and on the left the The Holy Lance which is the head of the spear that pierced the side of Jesus as he hung from the cross.

Crown Jewels

And this was no ordinary, every day, run of the mill piece of the true cross. Oh no…
This one had one of the nail holes in it making it TRULY unique and probably extra holy.

Crown Jewels

After leaving the Imperial Treasury we had planned on going to one of the art museums, but we came out and the sun was shining and it was so beautiful that we altered our plans and took a walk. Details on that in the next update.

Photographic Fun In Vienna

Vienna is a VERY photogenic city. We were walking around rather casually by the Vienna Opera House and I spotted these two fountains. I shot these using the HDR technique of capturing three different exposures and then tonemapping them into one image using Photomatix. To have this work really well you should use a tripod, but I was not carrying mine at the time so I had to shoot the three images handheld. Thanks to the shake reduction technology of the Sony and the quickness of the Minolta 35/2 lens I was able to pull this off with more than satisfactory results.

Vienna Opera House

Fountain

I will be going out with the tripod this evening to see what I can get. There’s a lot to shoot here and I’ve already got some more great stuff in the pipeline.