Our last full day in Vienna, June 26, was a Sunday. The Vienna Boys Choir sings Sundays at the Imperial Chapel, but one pays 10 € for hearing them at a church service, and tickets are hard to get. Instead, we took Rick Steve’s advice (for once) and headed for the Augustinerkirche, and equally lovely church, also part of the Imperial complex, where excellent music happens. Lucky us! We managed to arrive in time for the Anton Bruckner Mass in E Minor, plus a whole lot more. The service went on for 2 hours! But fortunately we had comfortable chairs (instead of sitting in the rock hard pews or standing up) and we didn’t mind. How could you mind when listening to music in that setting?
Augustinerkirche
After that, we walked around the Innerstadt
water fill up/fountain on Graben in Vienna--Mountain Water take note!
Donner's fountain to the rivers in Neumarkt Platz
detail of fountain
man digging for coins in fountain to the rivers in Neumarkt Platz
and visited the Capuchin Church, home to the crypts of the Hapsburgs. The crypts are beautifully ornate and I find it interesting that death is actually acknowledged, personified and raised here to a level of art, rather than glossed over in a shiny casket.
detail of tomb of Elizabeth Christine
death = life veiled?
detail from the casket of Kaiser Karl VI
We then moseyed over to the MuseumsQuartier, in hopes of finding some live music from South Africa, because we had seen a poster for a South African Festival being held there. No music, just a lot of art and crafts, but interesting none the less. Also a fabulous imperial looking sandcastle!
sandcastle at Museumsquartier
The MuseumsQuartier plaza-a lively place
The Leopold Museum is in the MuseumsQuartier and was open. Hooray, at last! They have a fabulous permanent collection of Egon Schiele as well as a decent grouping of the works of Gustav Klimt. What is even better, (unlike the MUMOK), they also have very good explanatory notes in German and in English! The current ‘exhibition’ was on photography and Ansel Adams was included there!
Egon Schiele - still life flowers
detail of life, from Life and Death by Gustav Klimt
Ansel Adams photos on display: left, Rocks and Limpets, 1960
We finished our day by walking back to our hotel, taking in the sights along the way.
reflection along the street in Vienna
Having access to all of this art and art history has been fabulous. I think I will look at what I see in Missoula with new and expanded eyes.
Thanks for reading!