Vienna's Finest Museums

---

A busy day today. Again we woke up to the familiar hotel breakfast buffet: a tepid pan of undercooked scrambled eggs, gray sausages links suspended in a greasy, film covered liquid, and strange granola cereal served with warm milk. I expect they thought this is what tourists want to eat. It was my understanding that Europeans eat no more than bread and jam for breakfast, and it did seem like many of the hotel’s guests were doing just that. The strangest thing I saw however was a gentleman gently slurping his coffee out of a bowl…a peculiar habit, but it worked for him. Feeling adventurous, I sat down at a table full of strangers for a change (really I just wanted to find someone with whom I could speak French) and started asking people where they were from. It turned out a couple of my neighbors were Dubliners, and when I told them I was from Missouri, the replied, “Missouri? Isn’t that the land of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn?” I was flattered the show-me state was even mentioned outside of the mid-west and felt a bit of pride for our boy from Hannibal.

After breakfast, we had a scheduled tour of the Hofburg Palace. I was especially excited about this because I love to see old castles and the decadence with which much of the European monarchy lived. This was the residence of the Emperor Franz Joseph and his wife Elisabeth, lovingly known as Sissi. In fact, Sissi was not a very important leader—she had no political influence and she actually wasn’t even that well liked. However, she was among the last of the Habsburgs to live in Vienna and really represented the lifestyle of the aristocracy at the time, so her museum serves more as a memorial to the royal way of life than anything. Sissi spent up to 8 hours a day doing her hair and makeup and the rest of her time was spent traveling, riding horses, and taking cocaine. Not bad for a woman whose main role was to have children and represent Austria. The woman was a little crazy…it’s no wonder she hit the crack pipe once in a while. After the Sissi museum we were able to wander through some of Franz Joseph and Elisabeth’s rooms. It was fascinating to see the very spot where the nobility spent their days and nights. One room was reserved for Franz Joseph’s subjects who were waiting to have an audience with him.

Following the scheduled tour, we had time to walk around the grounds of the palace on our own. Emily and I decided we were going to do some hardcore museum visits…and visit we did. We both agreed that we are like parrots when it comes to “shinys” so we decided the national treasury museum was a must. Full of jewels, scepters, crowns, and robes, the treasury held some of Austria and the Austro-Hungarian empire’s most valued possessions. The crown jewels as well as the original crown of the Holy Roman Empire are kept here. A bit touristy and difficult to navigate, but some really great history.

Our next stop was the “Figarohouse,” which was one of Mozart’s last apartments. It has been turned into a museum complete with a guided tour and artifacts from Mozart’s life and times. Parts of some of Mozart’s original scores and manuscripts are on display here. It was truly exciting to see some of these original masterpieces in the master’s own writing, but perhaps more striking than the artifacts was the view from the window: just to be able to look out onto the same view that Mozart had every day was a sort of musically “religious” experience.

Our last museum of the day was one Dr. Crabb had recommended: the musical instrument museum, housed in the same building as the national library. The museum was full of rare, ancient, and notable instruments—it was quite a collection. There was a handset provided that one could use to listen to some of the more notable or unique instruments. I found quite amusing the glass harmonica, invented by Ben Franklin, on which several pitched “glasses” were mounted and then made to spin by a foot pedal. When a moistened finger was pressed to the rim of any of these glasses, the classic “wine glass squeal” was produced. A combination of fingers and glasses could produce any number of harmonies and melodies—what a quirky invention!

On the way back for dinner, I decided to stop at the open air market that was a few block from our hotel. This was a huge expanse of vendors (mostly food) and restaurants that catered, as we learned, to some of Vienna’s finest chefs and restaurants. The ingredients were fresh and aromatic, and just walking from stall to stall was a full sensory experience. I really enjoyed this little taste of local flavor, and look forward to visiting it again when I can actually use some ingredients!

---