We left Moravia after the Slavic Epic, spent the night at a very nice municipal
stellplatz in Stockauer and arrived in Vienna by noon, setting up camp at Camping Wien West, very close to the Wienerwald (Vienna Woods). (Weeny world, as Vicki calls it). Our first sightseeing stop was the Belvedere Palace, now an art museum, but originally a gift of the emperor to Eugene of Savoy, Frederick the Great's teacher, and who, along with the Duke of Marlborough, defeated Louis XIV's armies at Blenheim. Important lesson, learned in England and now Austria: if you really want to get ahead in life, defeat Louis the XIV's armies. (Or Napoleon's). The Belvedere is nice, but can't hold a candle to Blenheim Palace, however. Almost nothing can. The art collection at the Belvedere appears mostly stuff that did not make it to the Kunsthistorischemuseum, nice Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, plus a whole lot of Vienna's dynamic duo, Klimt and Schiele, the major reason for going other than the view of the old city. It's one of the places in Vienna to which we had not been before. The Belvedere has a no pix policy, so the Klimts and Schiele below were snatched off the web.
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The Belvedere, from the backside (lots of construction going on)
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Klimt's Judith, another one of which
we'll see at the Kunsthistorischemuseum
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Klimt's Kiss
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Schiele
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Belvedere gardens and view of old Vienna
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Mixed messages
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