Opulence | Tales from the Hutt

Sunday, 30-June-2024

After adventure and excitement, I finished my quest for the Art History museum in Vienna.

I’m going to be using the term “opulent” a lot in my blog posts about Vienna, I can tell. But really, there’s no better term to use to describe this museum… it was, simply put, opulent. In every sense of the word. I mean, Vienna is already full of beautiful architecture and art everywhere I looked and walked – how could the museum of art history not step that up a few levels?

I walked in, gawked at my surroundings for a few minutes, then tracked down the cafe – it was the early afternoon, after all, and I’d been exploring around the city in the heat of the day for a few hours at that point. I needed some food, quite a bit of water, and a coffee. Thankfully, I found all three without any difficulty, and a short wait in line later I was sitting and staring at the glorious paintings and marble surrounding me.

It was interesting – I mentioned in my “Exploring Vienna” post that I felt a connection to my Grandfather in Cafe Central, since he’d likely gone there at least once with his parents… Well, the Art History museum had a similar feeling for me. It had been founded in 1891, and although I doubt the cafe was quite that old I still felt confident that, at one point or another, my Grandfather had been roughly where I was now. Knowing his own love for the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, probably multiple times.

Seeing the room around me, it helped me understand where he had been coming from in his life. He’d grown up in Vienna, likely seeing the absolute opulence and majesty as the norm. Then, to see Vienna devolve into Nazism and hate so quickly, only to have to flee to England and the United States… It was interesting, trying to set myself into that mindset and to see how that would have affected me.

I kept those thoughts in mind as I finished my meal and traversed the museum.

From Egypt to Rome, into the treasures of the Hapsburgs and onward into stunning paintings and relics from throughout the city’s history. There was one exhibit on The Fugger’s family that I didn’t quite understand, but aside from that the museum was absolutely glorious – a lesson in beauty and regality. I even found a whole segment hidden on the top floor on Cartoons! Though… not cartoons that you or I would recognize as such, instead being massive tapestries depicting specific events and battles of the Hapsburg Dynasty.

I wandered, perused, and enjoyed the grandeur surrounding me. I appreciated the air conditioning, finished my explorations, and braced myself for the heat of the early evening on my walk home.

Saturday, 29-June-2024, through Thursday, 04-July-2024

Vienna.

Ancient seat of the Hapsburg Empire.

A city of high ceilings, soaring architecture, and gilded palaces. Sweeping gardens, soaring domes, and expansive museums were everywhere – A golden history alive and well in the current day.

There were also other reminders. Two imposing flak towers, left standing when they proved too challenging to demolish. Indirect references to the cities previous Jewish population. Veiled references to the historic traumas that the city, or more accurately its peoples, had experienced.

I found that I loved Vienna at first, though after learning some of its deeper and more divisive history I found that love turning a little black. Vienna still holds a place as one of my favorite cities on this adventure, at least so far, though there’s a bitter taste that was left after learning of the levels of inequity, lost promise, and antisemitism that checker the city’s past.

Let’s actually flip the script a bit here, and talk about food first.

First and foremost – I adore Austrian cuisine, I’ve learned. Schnitzel is amazing, delicate-yet-hearty breakfasts are glorious, and good coffee over slow meals is critically underappreciated in the United States. Seriously – I ate Schnitzel four times, I think, and three of those meals were from the same place. I don’t know why… but something about the crispy crunch and savory chicken is just… so good.

Schnitzel Konig – I adored this place. Simple, easy, and delicious. Great price, and excellent both eating in and taking away. Turns out – I adore schnitzel. Who knew?
La Bes – A lovely small-ish bakery near where I was staying. Great coffee, excellent breads and pastries. Couldn’t ask for more.
The Legends – A good spot for breakfast, again right near where I was staying. Not anything particularly special, but a solid start to a solid day.
Kunsthistorisches Museum cafe – A cafe in the art museum, what more could I ask for when I got hungry while visiting the art museum? Honestly, it was really good, and not that overly expensive, so… would recommend as part of the museum, so you can have some downtime between exhibits.
That’s Amore – Solid Italian spot right near where I was staying. It wasn’t bad, but was exceptionally slow… possibly because of the World Cup which was monopolizing everyone’s attention. Still – I’m trying to slow down a bit and enjoy myself, so this was a good excuse to be relaxed.
Schachtelwirt – I stopped in here for a quite bite of lunch, and wasn’t disappointed. Good Weinerschnitzel, solid sides, quick and simple.
Cafe Scalina – Simple and solid breakfast near where I was staying… fried eggs, latte, some pastries… nothing too exciting, but good fuel for the day.
Tomochan Ramen – This was a neat stop. I noticed them while exploring the nearby Belvedere Palace, and figured that I could go with a nice bowl of ramen. What I didn’t expect was that it was also a Halal restaurant… and so the Ramen didn’t include pork. I got beef instead, and it was surprisingly excellent!
Cafe Central – Now this was a special place. A very old cafe, from 1876, this cafe has hosted illustrious thinkers such as Freud, Trotsky, and many others. More importantly to me, it very likely hosted my Grandfather back when he was a young boy living in Vienna. The ambiance was amazing, the food excellent, and the sense of history and “why yes, I am exceptionally fancy, thank you” was incredible. I didn’t include any pictures here, since they’re going to be getting their own entire post!

With our bellies fed with excellent food pictures, where do we go from here?

Vienna wasn’t a small city, and I found myself using Electric Scooters for most of my excursions into the city… at least to get to the general area of my destination, before finishing up on foot. The scooters were pretty tightly controlled, in regard to where one could park them, but at this point that’s been pretty common from what I’ve seen.

People follow traffic laws, as one would expect, and navigating around the city was frankly a breeze. Many people spoke English, though I did get to flex what little bits of German I do know without any condemnation of rudeness.

Simply put, the city was staggering. Everything was ornamented, everything seemed to exude the opulence and royalty of Vienna’s past, and people seemed to simply live that life. I didn’t see too much modern infrastructure, but then again I didn’t venture particularly far outside of the old-town area. I’m sure that I’d be able to find hip areas of urban art and modern stylings, if I had felt the desire to look… but as it was, I simply enjoyed the history and historic opulence of the older portion of the city.