Vienna

My August holiday involved a trip around Central Europe. It is fair to say that this was a holiday that evolved as much as was planned. This year's European Athletics Championships were in Berlin, so I had always intended to go out and watch them. Then friends invited me out to their villa in Hungary, so I thought I would go to them and then go onto Berlin. I asked whether it was best to fly to Budapest and they said no, Vienna would be easier. And it so happened that I had an ex-colleague who lives in Vienna, so I wondered if I could invite myself over for a weekend with him and his fiancee first. Bingo, it all came together!

So I arrive Friday afternoon and Dan is kind enough to meet me off the train from the airport and guide me back to his apartment.

Now a word about Dan to start with. He was a trainee at my firm and indeed in my department, and we would have loved to give him a job if he had wanted it. Sadly (for us) he had an Austrian fiancee so chose to join our office in Vienna. And particularly sadly for me because we used to go to gigs together, having very similar music tastes. Furthermore, having joined our Vienna office he had now moved on to become head of legal at a biotech form. By the age of 30. Pretty impressive. Well very impressive. But then, given how much we wanted him to stay with us, I did point out that it shouldn't be a surprise that others would be keen to employ him too. Just occasionally you come across people who have it all. And they deserve it all too. Genuinely couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke.

Anyway he lives in this very attractive apartment. Not huge, and no lift ( I gratefully accepted his offer to carry my luggage up the stairs. There are some advantages to age...!), but Dan's real pride and joy is the roof terrace.  Somehow I think one imagines Vienna in the snow, and while that may reflect the winters, the summers are sunny and hot, and this one particularly so. Hence the roof terrace becomes a living room. Brilliant.

Now, it just so happened that this particular weekend, our Vienna office was hosting my Firm's "World Cup", where our various international offices field football teams, and both Dan and his fiancee were competing (albeit that neither, quite, at the date of playing, were working for the Firm.). Anyway, the relevance of this for current purposes is that they were going to be playing in the rather ridiculous heat on the Saturday, and were also going to meet up with Austrian friends on the Friday night, so we all went into town together, had hot dogs (Viennese style) and then went our separate ways. So  I had to fend myself, have an aimless around and get orientated.

 

 

A rather water depleted canal.

The cakes in Vienna are, well, rather special. Its not Greggs shall we just say.

St Stephens Cathedral

And so onto Saturday. For Dan and Nikki a sweaty day of football. For me, well I thought that rather than wander around under a beating sun I would plump for the air-conditioning of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. This is one of the great museums of Europe, with a brilliant fine art gallery, a very well presented collection of classical antiquities  and the Kuntskammer. The latter is a collection of incredibly richly decorated ornaments of exquisite craftsmanship although possibly dubious taste - a group of works produced largely to show off enormous wealth in the Austro-Hungarian baroque. Which it does very effectively.

  

 

 The interior is suitably imposing. The wall decorations and ceilings are worth seeing without even bothering with the collections.

 The picture galleries are extensive. All the Italian and Dutch Renaissance artists you could wish for.

Summer, by Acrimboldo, genuinely one of the most original artists of any age with his portraits made up of vegetables.

Not all works are exactly PC in the modern age. #MeToo?

 

My greatest interest lies in classical antiquities. The collection here is not only good but also very attractively presented (except not in English - I had to text Dan for a translation of one exhibit I was particularly interested in! It turned out to be a torch-holder)

 There is a more modest collection of Egyptian artefacts

 And then onto the Kuntskammer, a gaudy collection of precious objets d'art. This Cellini salt cellar is possibly the most famous work in this section.

After much of theday in the museum I headed out through the park (taking in monument to Mozart)

Not content with that huge museum, I also had a quick look around the Museum of Applied Arts, better known as the MAK.

 And finished up at an Indian  restaurant recommended by my hosts.

Sunday was another blindingly hot day, and my hosts were rather too hungover for anything too active, so we went to a nearby waterpark. Bit of a swim, but rather more of a lie in the sun.

Followed by a very Austrian dinner.

Vienna Schnitzel. It had to be done.

And finally up on the roof terrace again for a view of the moon over Vienna.

It was lovely weekend. I was genuinely delighted to see how well the world seemed to be going for my young friends. Only a twinge of envy as Dan headed out to the office on Monday morning in t-shirt and shorts - a degree of informality we haven't quite reached in the City. Vienna has just been voted the best city in the world to live in. I would be envious were it not that this couple are just too nice to envy. And after all they were kind enough to put me up for the weekend. Why shouldn't nice guys win? Actually one of my delights at the moment is that almost all my young friends seem to be in a good place now and content with their lives. That does give me pleasure rather than wistful pangs of "if only I were young." I am quite happy cheering from the sidelines.

Anyway, for me it was the train for the second leg of my European tour. Hungary next.