Vienna's metro is extensive and efficient, but doesn't inspire me to take photos. I wondered what made me even think of that and realized it's a combination of things: I love metros, and the one in Prague was totally worth photographing. The stations there are aging communist art, and it was surprisingly lovely. But very few other metros are so interesting to look at.
My breakfast this morning was just a sandwich from Spar - the other major grocery store chain from Billa, which we've visited a couple times already. (Sarah, I remind you, boarded a train early this morning to go to Salzburg for the love of "The Sound of Music," an idea that I'm afraid didn't appeal to me).
My first stop of the day was the Technisches Museum, a close relative of the Ontario Science Centre. Like the Science Centre, one of its primary objectives is explaining scientific principles to children. But this museum has a stronger emphasis on collecting technological items, and they have a HUGE space to store them in. So many machines: steam engines to hair dryers to synthesizers, cars, computers, and auto-pianos. They have a full sized grand piano, a couple upright pianos, a form of trumpet that took its music on perforated tape, 15 cars, several steam engines, a helicopter, several small planes ... Did I mention it's big? And, after I requested it, they demonstrated their transparent pneumatic tube delivery system. Not that they use it for anything practical, it's just for demonstration ... but it kind of made my day.
From there I went back to the Museum Quarter to see MUMOK, which I had interpreted as being their Museum of Modern Art. I got into the Museum Quarter alright, but there are about 20 museums in the immediate area and I walked past MUMOK three or four times (I'm claiming bad signage because I don't like the alternative).
MUMOK was kind of a bust: it's a big building, but it's not a collection - rather several installations/curations of particular artists, and very recent. One painting I saw stood out as something I liked, but also seemed out of place. On closer examination, I discovered that it was by my guy FrantiĊĦek Kupka, a Czech artist I fell in love with when I was in Prague. So not a big surprise I should like it. But it turned out it was only on display because it was there to support a more recent painted image that mimicked it.
I decided to try to get to a couple more churches, happily near our hotel. So I searched for lunch near the hotel and ended up going to a place in the middle of the Technical University of Vienna's campus, called "Quick Yammy" (truly) - cheap but well reviewed and actually quite good stir fry Chinese place.
I went to the Schottenkirche - we'd walked right past it on one of our walking tours, and somehow failed to stop. They had a heavy duty barrier grill at the back of the church so you could see the church, but not go look at the side chapels - a bit of a disappointment. Fairly nice church. The barrier grill at least acted as a resting spot for my camera, stabilizing it for longer exposures ...
photo: Schottenkirche ceiling and altar
Next up was Peterskirche: the first time we visited, there was a service in progress. The second time it said "for silent prayer only!" Which didn't stop a lot of tourists, but it stopped me - I don't like to interfere with people's prayer. But this time, finally, I could go in and look around and take photographs. As an added bonus, a solo singer was practicing with the organist. She was good, although unpracticed on the pieces they were working on. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed listening to them work on the music together. She looked like a somewhat frazzled 40 year old - I guess that's probably what she was ... it's just ... church soloist. I expected something else? I have no idea what.
My final stop of the evening was another micro-brewery, "Mama Kraft - Huth Basement Brewery". I was unmasked inside for a couple hours. Not optimal, but I haven't yet found a good way to drink with a mask on. I started with a shot of the "Marille Schnaps" - Apricot-based hard liquor, fairly good. That interest was inspired by our visit to the abbey at Melk yesterday, where they made an Apricot Schnapps, which also reminded me that I like to try local hard liquors as well as beers - this was clearly one of them.
I then switched to beer, and asked for their "Citrus Radler" - only to have him crack a bottle of Ottakringer Citrus Radler. It's a major bottled brand, not made in house. That was disappointing. It was drinkable but not great. And then on to their only dark beer, the Powidl Porter. Google Translate wasn't working on the description of the porter because the bar is in a basement, and the bar's offered WiFi didn't let me connect, so all I got by reading the German was "unusual aromatics" and I didn't know what "Powidl" meant at the time. I got notes of nutmeg from the taste ... as the bartender said, "it's different!"
Benign neglect from the bartenders, except when one of them picked up a discarded lemon at an adjacent table and squirted me by accident, then the ceiling dripped on me (twice), combined with mediocre beers led to a fairly weak experience there. On the plus side, I had a conversation with a family of Torontonians on a tour of the area - it sounded like they (and their two young children) had been in Vienna a day and a half and they'd already been to three beer bars.
I headed back to the hotel, with a craving for potato chips (or preferably the harder-to-find Paprika Bugles) ... but the grocery stores all close at 2000 and it was 2010. Then I saw "Variete Maxim" and thought "great, a variety store," only to approach and realize it was our local gentleman's club that we'd passed and noted earlier. This led to more comedy, as I texted this revelation to Sarah and she pointed out that TripAdvisor actually has reviews of strip clubs - or at least this one (quite negative ...).