Fruhstuck

As on most holidays, food did figure quite largely, not least because we needed pit-stops during all the sight-seeing.

But one of the most important meals was breakfast.  In England the term "Continental Breakfast" has a somewhat dismal sound: a limp croissant, a roll, possibly some fruit.

But in our hotel in Austria, and even, it has to be said, on the sleeper train itself, breakfast was a substantial meal.

On offer were a range of cold meats and cheeses

Bircher muesli, yoghurt and fruit

Flavoured oils and essences

Sausages, scrambled eggs and bacon

Bread, rolls fresh croissants

Jams from the Tyrol, and

a whole Carpathian honeycomb.

Freshly made sponge cake dotted with plums - who eats this for breakfast?

I watched as an elderly German munched his way stolidly through plate after plate: a cooked breakfast, cold meats, two separate platefuls of bread and wedges of cheese.  He was eating for three - or possibly eating all his meals for the day at one sitting.

Cologne

We had several hours to kill in Cologne, on both the outward and return journeys.  Of course we were here last year, so we had explored the cathedral before.

We ate supper in the café just opposite the cathedral, as before.

On our way back, it was early morning so we began with a leisurely coffee in that same café.  If you ever have the chance to visit, the toilets at this café are a bargain at 50 cents.  I have never before seen Japanese tourists taking photographs inside a toilet.  Here the glass doors are transparent until you fasten the lock, when they become opaque.  It's all sparkling with cleanliness.

So, at ten, we were able to access the Roman Museum, which is conveniently close to both cathedral and railway station.  The story is that they were excavating for an air-raid shelter in 1941 when they uncovered this fantastic mosaic floor.

It has detailed images of wildlife.

Perhaps even ore surprising is this second floor.  What must the Germans have thought when this came to light in 1941?  Of course it is an ancient symbol, but even so.

The collection of Roman artefacts in this museum includes many intact glass vessels

pieces of sculpture

and jewellery.

It made for a really interesting visit.

Vienna 5

Our last day in Vienna!  I decided that I needed to at least see some shops, even if not actually buy anything, so we arranged a meet-back.  This is always fraught with difficulties as I usually just follow while my husband reads the map.  He headed off for the Hofburg complex.

I began with the Mozart House, in a street just behind the cathedral, where Mozart rented an apartment.  I learned a lot from the audio-guide.  The apartment had been the home of a skilled plasterer and some of his faux marble is still visible in what is assumed to have been the main bedroom.. Like living in a show home, I suppose.

Then my problems started.  I was on the trail of a yarn store in the Fleischmarkt, but I walked miles, often in the wrong direction, to get there.  There were plenty of unusual shops but no wool shop that I could see.

After lunching at the Café Mozart, we went to the Albertina, which we were surprised to find was both an art gallery and another palace with a highly decorated suite of rooms.

Upstairs now houses the private collection of the Batliners, including a room full of Picassos.  A really impressive collection.

After all this, we met again for tea.  Before our trip we had studied a guide book organised on the Top Ten principle, and had noted the Top Ten cakes to be sampled in Vienna.  Everywhere we went we found coffee-houses offering a pretty comprehensive range.  Many Viennese cakes are more like a layered dessert with different flavoured mousses on a sponge base layer and topped with a strongly flavoured jelly.  We sampled a fair few over the five days but we also walked miles to compensate.

Eventually it was time to return to our hotel for supper, collecting our suitcases before boarding the sleeper back to Cologne on our way home.  More on Cologne later.

Vienna 4

Don't worry; we were only there for five days, so this must end soon.

Sunday was a wet day.  At one point I tried to book a cruise along the Danube to Bratislava, but the booking fell through.  This was probably just as well.  Enquiring about tickets at the station we queued behind a middle aged Australian determined to make the most of his tour.

"Budapest in one day?" the girl said.  "That's ambitious."  He was also aiming at Prague.

We, however, took the tube downtown to the main city Art Gallery, just the job for a rainy day.  The interior is heavily ornamented.

Notice the panels by Klimt.

 And the collection is pretty comprehensive, again reflecting the reach of the Austrian empire.

One of my all-time favourite pictures: "Hunters in the Snow".

A wall of Rembrandts.

Jane Seymour by Holbein.

Giving new meaning to the expression, "Been there, seen that, got the t-shirt." I mean, I like "Hunters in the Snow", but I have no desire to wear it.

After lunch - open sandwiches topped with raw grated horseradish - we moved down to the collection of objects, not knowing what this might be.  Essentially, it was room after room of gold, ivory, rock crystal, lapis lazuli..... so much, it was overwhelming.

An early calculating device:

And a salt cellar by Benevenuto Cellini.

Vienna 3

Saturday: a dull day in terms of weather, but not raining so we took a trip to Franz Joseph's little place, twenty minutes by tube from the city centre: Schonbrunn Palace.  And we were not alone. 

We queued through airport style lanes for tickets with a ninety minute delay for entrance to the actual palace.  This gave us time to  explore the Privy garden, the Orangery, the Maze and to eat a light lunch before we went in.

Everything here is on the grand scale; all drives are wide enough for carriages six abreast.  Plenty of room to walk off the inevitable slices of cake.

We followed an audio-guide tour around the rooms of the palace itself.  We learned a great deal about the life of Franz Joseph, emperor for sixty-eight years during the nineteenth century.   We were on the so-called Grand Tour which included forty rooms - but we passed on the private apartments of Sisi.  This was Franz-Joseph's wife, the Empress Elizabeth, a renowned beauty, whose life of dedication to her own image ended in assassination at the age of 63.  Never in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that one day her portrait would adorn a deck-chair, so the buyer can effectively sit on her.  You saw it here first.

Once out, we walked down to the spectacular cascade and then up the steep hill to the Gloriette, the largest in Europe.  Even on a dull day the views were very impressive.

After our evening meal it was off to the Karlskirche again, this time for a performance of Mozart's "Requiem."  Could Mozart have heard it performed here himself?  Well, no, since it was incomplete at his death, but it was certainly an atmospheric concert venue, scaffolding and all.

Vienna 2

Friday was a day full of sights and sight-seeing.  The weather remained set fair.

We started at the Karlskirche, the interior a vision in white and gold.  Above the altar, a great swirl of baroque clouds carries St Carl up to heaven.

However, even more memorable was the ascent to the dome.  In 2002 repair work necessitated scaffolding and a lift right up into the dome.  That's fifteen years ago and it is still there.  The astute Viennese realised that charging tourists to go up in the lift could fund all sorts of other repairs to the church fabric. A clever idea.

We went up in the lift to a solid platform at the base of the dome.

Then it was up seven flights of stairs at eye-level with the frescoes.

At last, one emerges into the open-air outside the dome, to a panorama of the city.  A thrilling experience.

Just down the street, we arrived at the Secession Building, a surprising construction dating from the Jugendstil period in the early 1900s.

Yes, that is a dome constructed of open work gilded laurel leaves.  What else could it be?

Out along the street was a busy market, full of brilliant colour.  We drank coffee at a pavement café, admiring the exteriors of the Wagner House.

On to the Stephansdom, the cathedral of Vienna, where I took a lift up to the viewpoint.

After lunch, it was on again, to the Museum of Applied Art, which houses a collection of Arts and Crafts and Jugendstil furniture and objects.

By this time we were beginning to flag.  In Vienna, this means time for a Jause, or snack of coffee and cake.  We headed for the Café Sacher where we sampled the Sacher torte and a piece of Apfelstrudel for good measure.

And it was still only tea-time.