I walk over to the post office this morning to mail some of mom's postcards but it is closed. Strange. The streets are very quiet too for a Monday. The supermarket is closed. Must be a holiday I know nothing about. We take the tram and go to Cafe Landtman for breakfast across the street from the Rathaus Park. A gorgeous open air behind glass walls deck with Viennese breakfast where Freud used to go. Today I must go to the Leopold Museum. I am proud to say that I figure out the tram stops and we get off at the right spot, cross the street, and walk into the Museum Platz.
There are museums galore here! We walk through the Maria Theresa Platz into the Quartier where the Leopold stands on one end and the MOMUK on the other. In between there are four cafes, one in each corner, and these red and green plastic chaise-longue kind of chairs where people recline or nap under the sun.
The Leopold doesn't disappoint. All of Klimt's personal things are here: hundreds of postcards he wrote to Emilie Flogue, chairs from his summer place, a telescope, Emilie's clothes, and paintings of landscapes, portraits, drawings, photographs a plenty, and a good video about his time in Lake Atersee. The other galleries hold works of Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, and other Secession artists. I just love these works! You can sit in some of the galleries and listen to music by Mahler or Schonberg with headphones. There is a room with Otto Wagner's map of the city and other designs. The notes on the walls inform me that Klimt had six children by three women who were his models but his life-long companion was Emilie Flogue; that Richard Gerstl slept with Schonberg's wife and when she left Gerstl to go back to her husband, Gerstl committed suicide. These Viennese were something else! What a time! What a place! I'm still waiting to see Alma Mahler somewhere and go to Freud's home and Mozart's. So many key figures of the 20th century lived right here and went to the same cafes and restaurants I've been going to.
After lunch we go to MOMUK for a Claes Oldenberg exhibit where I have a small altercation with the ticket taker because she wants me to check my bag even though at the Leopold they didn't make me. I finally do and she lets me in. Oldenberg's huge soft sculptures are sweet. I want to take them home. I especially like the mixer, the toilet, the ashtray with cigarette buts and the saw. There is also a Pop Art exhibit with works by Rauschenberg, Lichtenstein, and others I cannot remember right now. The MOMUK is very industrial looking with pipes and grates and plenty of glass. After we stop at the cafe for a coffee (what else?). It starts to rain. Just a drizzle though.
Tomorrow I must go to the Belvedere to see Klimt's paintings. These Austrians have spread his works through several museums to make us spend more money I think. Still to come: Danube tour, Staatsoper, Hundertwasser Haus, Hoffbrun, and only two more days left.
Last night we walked over to a Turkish fest but didn't eat, choosing instead the Gasthaus Wild across the street, one of the best restaurants in Vienna according to Time Out Vienna. And if Time Out says it's good, it must be. Actually it was: wiener schnitzel again. Good wine. Waiter translates the menu because my German is nonexistent. I find that the friendliest service people are the foreigners. Is anyone surprised?
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