The Vienna Trip 2008

 The Vienna Trip 2008

Astrid went to a science teachers convention and I came and toured the city. We arrived in Vienna on Thursday and after booking into the hotel took  a long walk through the city the Opera Theatre,St Stevens Cathedral the central shopping mall and the other churches then past the Spanish Riding School and the Palace. One feels very comfortable sitting in a coffee shop drinking coffee and strudel or sucher tort.
While Astrid went to the teachers convention , the next 2 days I toured Vienna on the trams and underground. Part of Vienna is underground as at every subway station there shopping malls. I had a pass on the public transport but nobody ever checked if I had paid or not. I also took a train ride over the Danube which is a wide river on the outskirts of the city. I went to see a residential area where an enormous population live in old flats that are 6 stories high and not very attractive from the outside.
In the city there are so many museums that I had to chose just a few of them.  I went to see the History of Art Museum which is an extensive collection of art from the days of the Austro Hungarian Imperial rulers. The collections in London are small compaired to this and the main thing collected was Dutch and Flemish masters. In particular Rembrandt and Bruegel.  The Bruegel paintings that we are all familiar with are there. There was an artist who was painting the Bruegel country scene which she had been commissioned to do. She told me that the museum only allows you to copy paintings that the artist died over 70 years ago.
The more modern collection is at the Belvedere Palace where in one hall there is a plack where in 1955 a treaty was signed between The Soviet Union and Britain, France and the USA. Here you can see impressionist art including Klimt whose art is with women and love scenes. The designs of the dresses and on the furniture is amazing but all the women have the same man's face.
I was interested in hearing about Jewish Vienna so went to the Jewish Museum which I read was government funded. It has one of the biggest collection of Judiaca stuff collected by a Jew who returned after the Holocaust and donated it. There was also the story of the Korngold family who were top musicians and composers in Vienna and made it big in Hollywood composing music for movies when they were forced to flee Austria.

The Frued Museum was also set up by the Austrian Government after the Austrian Chancellor on a trip to the States was asked why Freud's home country has not remembered him. The government bought his flat and his daughter sent his old clutter from London. Till 1938 the leading doctors in phycoanalyis all came to Vienna to study. This little museum was very busy even in the off tourist season. After the war pschiatry saw great developement in England and the States but not in Austria.
We were all taken to the palace that was turned into the boarding school of the Vienna Boys Choir, and had a private show for the teachers of the convention. This was the highlight of our trip and it was really a great performance.
In conclusion Vienna is a great city highly organised, well run and clean. You can feel it was one of the  centres of European culture. It used to produce great people and musicians(no longer) but Austria was the country that also gave us Hitler.