The Ham Nomads

25 Jul 2015. <AT> Vienna —

Suzie only likes steps downwards,
so the lift at Donaustadtbrücke station was a bonus.
(This U-Bahn station is UP on a bridge!)

Back into Vienna again today. This time, to the Belvedere Palace. We took the train in to Praterstern, then changed to the U1 line and went to Südtiroler Platz Hauptbahnhofstation. From here it was a short walk round to the Belvedere. These palaces (the Upper Belvedere and the Lower Belvedere) were built between 1700 and 1725, meant to be the summer residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy, but only the lower palace was ever used for this purpose, the upper palace being used to host official receptions and parties. In 1752, a few years after the death of the Prince, Empress Maria Theresa took over the palaces and used them to display the imperial painting collections. And this is basically the way they have been used ever since. The two palaces are separated by a fabulous three-level garden designed by Dominique Girard. The palace grounds are full of statues of sphinxes in various poses — we remember the earliest sphinx we've seen, from Hattuşa in Turkey.

Another claim to fame of the Oberes Belvedere is that, in its Marble Hall on May 15, 1955, the International Austrian Treaty was signed, which returned independence to the country after the Allied occupation following the Second World War.

The Upper Belvedere (Oberes Belvedere) houses a collection tracing the past 1000 years of Austrian Art, and the pride of the collection is a superb collection of the paintings of Gustav Klimt, including his seminal work, "The Kiss" and also his "Judith" (more properly called "Judith und Holofernes", as the frame, fitted by Klimt himself, bears this inscription).

The Kiss

        Judith               Adam and Eve (unfinished)

After the Rain                 Portrait of a Woman

Mother with two children (The Family)

Sunflower

The lower Belvedere (Unteres Belvedere) has other exhibitions, including one called "Klimt und die Ringstraße", which showed how Gustav Klimt submitted drawings for the decoration of buildings in Vienna's famous Ringstraße, the most desirable addresses in the city over the past centuries. (The "Portrait of a Woman", above, was actually part of this exhibition — she was obviously a resident of Ringstraße.)

... in spite of Warren's derision of selfies!

The Unteres Belvedere also has a Marble Hall, sumptuously decorated with frescoes and marble bas-relief plaques.

Ceiling painting in the Marble Hall

Wall fresco in the Marble Hall

Marble relief in the Marble Hall

From here, we walked around to Schwarzenbergplatz, where there is a Heldendenkmal der Roten Armee (monument to the Soviet soldiers) who fell during the liberation of Vienna in the the closing stages of World War II. We found a coffee stand here, where we got a good brew to keep us going until we got back to our van. We got on the train at Karlsplatz, took the U4 line round to Schottenring, where we changed for the U2 line back out to Donaustadtbrücke and the short walk back to the campsite. Another day where we did and saw things different from our first visit.

Distance driven — today, nil; to date, 24,406 miles ( 39,278 km )