Vienna

We have stayed in a wide range of hotels and guest houses over the past weeks. Our Vienna digs were reasonably close to the city with easy access to trams and underground trains. We were grateful for the continuing sunny weather. This was the morning view from our hotel window.

 As the streets were unusually quiet for such a big city, we eventually worked out that it was a public holiday and almost everything was closed. This also meant that there were no queues for the horse and carriage rides. It is a great way to orient yourself in a new place.

Vienna is the epitome of culture and grandeur. The government buildings, concert halls, museums, galleries and restaurants are from another time.

Austria is the birthplace of artist Gustav Klimt and the Belvedere Musuem houses some of his most famous works, such as The Kiss, which is one of my favourites. The Belvedere is a stunning building...

and the gardens are beautiful.

Inside we are treated to more elaborate ceiling murals...

and glorious chandeliers.

Thankfully some of the restaurants were still open for the reduced number of tourists about on this public holiday.

We chose the Mozart Cafe, which served the famous Sacher Torte, which was first invented at the Sacher Cafe just around the corner.

Even though Salzburg stakes her claim as Mozart's birthplace, Vienna is proud of the fact that he lived, composed and eventually died here. There are many classical concerts on every night of the week in Vienna and we treated ourselves to another evening of fine music at the Golden Room concert hall.