more art...

April 16th: A better sleep last night – or at least good until the trams started running at 5 am. The tracks go right around the corner that our hotel sits on – and you can hear the train a’comin about 20 seconds before it rounds the bend. Experiencing the trains in the morning is like being in labour – they start coming about 5 minutes apart at 5am, and by 7am they are coming every minute – just enough time to relax and doze off, and another one come grinding round the bend.

A cold and overcast day today. We started the day taking Linda’s SLR camera in to be fixed – it had taken a knock a couple of days ago, and the lens wouldn’t rotate to focus - the camera guy fixed it in about 30 seconds – for free! Then on to the metro to Belvedere Palace – an enormous castle, which now houses an impressive art collection. This one was, for me, way more interesting – a big exhibit of Klimt paintings, including the famous “The Kiss”, a familiar painting of Napoleon charging on a horse (I am so artistically literate!) and paintings with themes and message and interesting characters – people that looked like people, trees that looked like trees – more of “my kind of art”.

Stopped at a few more churches along the way – some of them open, some of them not. Then walked to Karlskirche (St. Charles Church) which is full of scaffolding while the frescos on the ceiling are being restored. The visit included an elevator ride 35 metres up through the scaffolding, and then a long climb to the top of the cathedral – you could “almost touch” the ceiling – fascinating to be that close to the paintings on the dome!

Went out tonight in search of a restaurant that might serve a few vegetables with the standard meat and bread dinner, and found an Armenian restaurant – we were the only customers in the place. In a combination of Arabic, German and English – and with lots of pointing – we apparently ordered 2 different kinds of salad, yogurt, lamb and chicken kababs and what might have been ground lamb formed like a sausage, with rice. It was delicious!

Travel tip #1: always carry a Swiss army knife, a ziplock bag and duct tape – when I shoved the sink stopper to far into the hole on laundry night – a skilful combination of SAK, ZB & DT and a beer can saved the day!