Vienna1

Vienna Part 1

I "had" to go to Vienna to pitch some business... we didn't know how long that was going to take, so the trip was padded by a couple days so I could hopefully hit a museum or two. For a brief trip where I stayed in basically downtown Vienna the whole time I was pretty impressed. Grand imperial architecture, good museums, and "culture" leaking out into the streets. It was clean and safe with refreshingly reasonable prices compared to London and Paris.

Click on the pictures for a larger version. (now with slideshow controls)

	Arriving at the hotel I thought for a second that Prof. Hazinski would be joining us.
	The evening I arrived I took a quick walk around, passing the MQ or Museum Quarter where unbeknownst to me, our client had been checking out space for their channel. In any case it is a converted imperial complex with half a dozen museums, workshops and performing arts centers.
	Oh no! The Edvard Munich exhibit closes in two days!
	Uh, can't remember... will look it up... that would be the Karlskirche. Got that?
	This is walking up the main North/South road in downtown...Kärntnerstraße
	...which quickly turns into a pedestrian shopping zone.

	Stephensplatz and St. Stephens church... a landmark of Vienna, but don't rely on it too much for navigation... there are many steeples that all look the same. This night (and subsequent nights) there were performers out in the square. In this case a fire juggling act.
	Aida Santory continues her world wide marketing campaign.
	This is a picture of Votivkirche taken from Sigmund Freud park... So...what do you think of when you look at this? Hmm?
	St. Stephens in the day. The subway system was simple, automated and ran more or less on the honor system. I never had my ticket check while I was there. A 72 hr pass was around $12
	More performers
	Natural History Museum on the left, across the street from the MQ
	When I was in Turkey at Ephesus one of the frustrating things was seeing all the placeholders for the pieces that the Austrians had carted away... so, I figured I should drop by the Ephesus museum in Vienna to see what I had missed.
	I was rather disappointed. Not very many pieces... poor "context" and with the exception of one room the collection was kind of scattered along a series of stair cases in a very opulent building.

	This is a copy of Artemis of Ephesus. The original is in a museum in Selcuck Turkey. A representation of "the mother goddess" the midsection is all breasts (as if designed by Chris Beckner) and the lower section are children or people.

	The other collection in the same building was of imperial armor and weaponry. To be honest I have seen so much of this that barring the knowledge a guide would have, it all looks the same, but the presentation was dramatic.

	In Heldenplatz... looking back at the Rathaus
	Relocated temple of Theseus, originally in ???
	Lots of parks...

	I just don't know. Tiven was convinced it was there for restoration purposes... I think it was just an artistic statement.
	This is the Rathaus, or old parliament building, and yes it had a Ratskeller underneath.
	Back to the Museum Quarter and our clients... they are looking to take over the space currently occupied by a Tabacco Museum that had a rather unique collection of pipes... many out of ivory. A handful of the pipes were more or less X rated. I wonder what my Freud would say about that.

Well, I am sorry top say that the other Vienna Museums were not keen on me taking pictures... but just for the record we went to the Leopold Museum to see a large collection by Toulouse Lautrec. Then I did manage to make it to the Albertina to see the Edvard Munich exhibit on its last day. With out a doubt I liked the Lautrec better. Muchen was not only depressing, but eventually boring, with room after room of similar hopelessness and despair. Having said that, he conveyed powerfully what he wanted, so... good art in its own way.
	I usually forget to take plane pictures, but it was pretty spectacular flying back to Nice. So, this is Nice from the air... most all of it... the airport is on the left and the port/harbor is just before the wing. The promenade/"beach" is between... gives you a better idea how long it is.
And that's the trip. The good news is that we eventually "got the deal" after two days of discussions. So I will (hopefully) be doing a lot of work in/for Vienna during the remainder of the year, so many more pictures and museum trips to come.