You always forget something on a trip, right? This time it was toothpaste. I would have sworn I packed it, but no. On my second trip ever off the North American continent (in 2002?), I learned how to say "Dentrificia" to find toothpaste in Venice. I still remember that word a couple decades later, although it's of little value and doesn't help in a German-speaking country. Our first foray this morning was to the supermarket Billa (a different, larger one than yesterday), where we stocked up on all kinds of goodies for breakfast - and toothpaste and bar soap. We both love perusing supermarkets in foreign countries, it's always an education. Then to a bank for a bank machine: Sarah opted to arrive without cash, and has done without until the bank machine - whereas I've spent nothing but cash since I arrived, having acquired several hundred Euros before departure. It's interesting how differently we chose to approach that. And then to the park where we sat on a bench across from Karlskirche to eat our breakfast. Let me tell you: Bugles were meant to be Paprika flavour, and if they sold those in North America, that would be my new favourite chip-adjacent junk food. (That wasn't breakfast, just an appetizer.)
Since we were there, Karlskirche was next. That's a lovely church. I didn't quite have the cahones to lie down flat on my back in the middle of the aisle to shoot the ceiling, so I'll have to settle for photos taken standing up. We went up the stairs to get a close look at the organ, and then out onto the roof (at the base of the dome, not at the top). I had wondered why St. Charles Borromeo (who is front and centre of the roof as you look at the grand entrance) had a spike coming out of his head: it turned out that every statue along the top edge of the church had a spike that was slightly taller than it and just behind it, all of which were wired down to the copper roof. Perhaps lightning is an issue.
Our next stop was slightly back toward Billa, going to the Technical University of Wien alumni store that we'd passed earlier that hadn't opened on our first visit. For reasons I couldn't answer to, I found their t-shirts attractive and wanted one (it's just words, saying "TU Wien" / "Technische Universität Wien" ... but I like it - and Sarah points out that it's also appropriate for an engineer). We had a nice chat with the very young man behind the counter - who turned out to be starting a career as a world traveller, having been to Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. He's in Environmental Engineering.
After a short visit to the hotel, we went to the Wiener Secession building. It's a "statement of intent" of the Seccession Movement, an artistic movement that started in Vienna. I'm not an authority (although I sometimes play one in my own head), but to me it looked a lot like a train crash between Art Deco and Art Nouveau - in a good way. The gold leaf dome above the building is not a dome, or at least not a practical dome - it's openwork metal. The decorations and lettering is decidedly Art Nouveau, the blockiness of the building felt more Art Deco. As far as we know, this is one you admire from the outside - not something you can actually step into.
photo: over the front entrance of the Secession building
From there we crossed the intersection and stepped into the Naschmarkt. For the Torontonians in the audience, imagine that someone peeled the lid off the St. Lawrence Market, and then spun the corridors out into two long lines multiple blocks long between a couple major streets, and you wouldn't be too far off. Meat, seafood, dried fruit, fresh veggies, tourist tat, worked leather, restaurants, wine, beer ... I love markets, and this is a good one. The Naschmarkt also allowed me to accomplish one of my more bizarre goals of the trip: my former boss insisted everyone from our team who travelled bring back an ugly magnet. I thought this was a horrible idea, but over the years I went from being a detractor to possibly being the plan's biggest supporter - both in number of magnets provided and also in enjoyment of this ludicrous world-wide collection of hideous fridge decorations. Not to worry - I got a marvellously tacky one.
When we finally popped out the far end, we found ourselves in the middle of a boulevard lined by jaw-droppingly ornate low-rise buildings. One was painted (several storeys) with Art Nouveau flowers, another had statuary, a third had jutting 1850s style balconies on every floor. Sometimes I'm sad Toronto doesn't look like this. Also, it reminded me considerably of Firenze (Florence) which has a lot of similarly ornate and lovely residential buildings.
We decided to go to the Sisi Museum and the Hofburg's State Apartments next, but rather than take a straight path we opted to head in approximately the right direction and just ... find our way there. Serendipity is often with you when you wander, and we stumbled across the Muttersmilch Vienna Brewery. They don't have a bar (you can't drink there) but they sell their own beer and an astonishing selection of independent beers from around the world. And when I say "astonishing ..." I found four different varieties of Toronto's Bellwoods Breweries "Jelly King" series on the shelf, which is pretty mind-blowing to discover in Vienna. I bought a bottle of their most recommended stout, which I'll consume some evening this week.
I kind of rushed Sarah through the Sisi Museum. Sisi does sound like she was a fairly extraordinary individual, but she's been idealized by the films made about her and the museum felt like it had grown up to feed almost a cult-of-personality.
The State Apartments were - they claim - last lived in by Franz Joseph and Sisi. They are very red velvet and white. I have to admit to being most fascinated by the heating stoves: these were ceramic-coated metal (or just ceramic?) monstrosities in every room, almost a metre in diameter and 2.5 metres tall. And most of them had no means of access, because that would have meant carting the fuel (coal? wood? not even sure) through the rooms and getting them dirty. Instead, there are corridors in the walls so the staff could access the stoves from the back and stoke them. They said a couple times on the audio guides how "spartan" Franz Joseph's life was - narrow bed, simple toiletries - but servants stoking fires in the walls without you ever thinking about it as you live in these massive, elegant rooms ... And Sisi didn't live spartan. Ankle length hair that was washed in a mixture of egg yolk and cognac ...
Finding a place for dinner turned out to be somewhat daunting: I was hoping to go to one of the many microbreweries on our map, but the criteria were fairly specific: good reviews, outdoor seating, and serving food (some of them have no food, or just snacks). We ended up at the 1516 Brewery at 1730. It was moderately busy, but we got lucky in our timing - by 1800 it was packed. Their menu concentrated on what I assume is fairly standard Viennese fare: Sarah had a goulash soup, I had the Weiner Schnitzel (pork, not veal). We both enjoyed our food. I had a shandy and a black and tan. The latter was ... interesting. I didn't initially like it. I'm not sure I liked it at the end either, but it was genuinely interesting.
Our final stop of the day was the Prater, the very large amusement park near the Donau/Danube river. Specifically, the Riesenrad ferris wheel made famous by the movie "The Third Man," which is still in operation. And still requires a half hour line-up. As the cars ahead of us stopped to be loaded, it was amusing to see that at least a couple of the cars were equipped for white tablecloth dining, another for a stand-up party - which left me speculating about what it would cost to rent one of those small cabins on such a famous ferris wheel. Ten people were loaded in each swinging cabin, and a very slow rotation through 360 degrees - the guidebooks will tell you "great views over Vienna," and maybe there are during the day, but at night it's "great views over the Prater" - the Prater is very well lit up, the rest of Vienna less so. It was fun.