Prater, 2010

Vienna's old amusement part, the Prater, is still going strong. Not a theme park, and nothing terribly beautiful nor exotic, but more rides than any other park I've seen. Vicki says we didn't go to the Prater on previous visits; I say we did.

For many years, the world's largest

As seen in...

Lots of other rides

Lots

Vicki just had to go on this one

She's up there somewhere, spinning around in dual orbits, upside down

And at the Prater we established an important new precedent: that Mark does not have to go on these 

things

Vienna State Opera

Another of the things we had never before done in Vienna was tour the Vienna State Opera. It was one of the best such tours we have done. The guide was exceptionally knowledgeable about the building, opera, and music generally.

Vienna State Opera, constructed in the 1860s, damaged in

the war, restored 1955-65

While waiting for the English tour to begin,

we tried on some of the costumes

I know, it's just not my color

Largest stage in Europe; they say you could fit St. Stephen's

inside it

Ditto

A meeting room in the Emperor's suite;

available for hire

In the main intermission hall they display

busts of all the great opera composers,

you know, Meyerbeer, Marschner,

Spontini (!)...but not Wagner...this is a small

bust in one of the subsidiary lounges...

the guide explained that the music critic

Eduard Hanslick had chosen those to be

honored...Wagner's fiercest contemporary

critic

View of the stage from center balcony

Side boxes

In the boxes, each seat has its own little flip-

up monitor to read the translated libretto

The dome and chandelier

Stage view from the floor

House view from floor

St. Stephen's Cathedral (Vienna, 2010)

Our next stop, moving around by bus, tram, and subway (we bought a 72 hour Vienna card, good mostly for transportation), was the old town center and St. Stephen's Cathedral. St. Stephen's was damaged in WWII but very faithfully restored. Alas, a mass was going on inside, so we could not wander as freely as we usually do. Well, it was Sunday.

Twin towers, scaffolding

Interior looking to main altar

Subsidiary altar

A ray of light...

Carving on column

South side, big tower, and the tiled roof for which

St. Stephen's is most famous

The big tower

Gargoyle

Another, with tiles

Nick-named "Jesus with a toothache"

More of the main tower and roof

The city's main horse carriage port; note the building of

shops built right up to the cathedral's north side, just like

in Medieval times....

Vienna's Belvedere Palace

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.

The Belvedere, from the backside (lots of construction going on)

Klimt's Judith, another one of which 
we'll  see at the Kunsthistorischemuseum

Klimt's Kiss

Schiele

Belvedere gardens and view of old Vienna

Mixed messages

Slav Epic

So, after six days, we reluctantly left Prague, already beginning to feel pressured and rushed by the impending expiration of our Schengen time and with two more big cities, Vienna and Budapest, before us. We did take time to stop off in Moravsik Crumlov--Moravian Crumlov (there's a Bohemian one too)--to see Mucha's massive Slav Epic paintings.

The Slav Epic has been displayed for some years in the

castle at Moravsik Crumlov

Not particularly well signed, but, at length, we found it

Going on in the park next door was a drumming marathon

and concert that evening

Drumming stage

Drummers drumming their drums

The castle itself is a bit of a fixer-upper

Original sun dial, no doubt

But it has its charm

Mucha willed his Slav Epic to the Czech

people and Prague, on the condition that

Prague build a suitable venue for it; Prague

continues to try to get the paintings, to put

them up in an old palace somewhere;

Moravsik Crumlov and the Mucha family

continue to fight the move; the matter is

presently in the courts; taped on the door

here is an injunction forbidding the removal

of the paintings; stay tuned, the Moravcsik

Crumlov people say

Anyhow, here are two of the twenty paintings (off the web;

there is a no pix policy); they are indeed enormous, 20 by

30 foot canvasses, originally made for ships' sails

The paintings are quite moving, even if, like

us, you don't know much Czech or Slavic

history; you can see more if you like by simply

searching "Mucha Slav Epic"

Prague Miscellany 2

Vicki at the Kafka statue

The sidewalks throughout the old city are of

brick, often with intricate designs; it's a

labor-intensive process with a beautiful result

The lower escalator at the Mustek subway station is one of the

longest I have seen and is certainly the fastest--twice, I'd say,

the speed of normal escalators; here's Vicki being whooshed

upstairs

How Czech public television plans to improve its ratings

Not sexist, though