Munich-Vienna

I arrived in Munich around nine a.m. on Friday morning. In some ways, Munich reminded me a bit of Budapest--quite modern, lots of shopping, a high degree of integration between old and new architecture. I had three hours to kill before Elese arrived, so I spent the morning wandering the streets, riding the elevator to the top of the Frauenkirche to see the view, and visiting the treasury. Munich´s treasury is modeled after the one in Vienna, and is actually a bit better in my opinion. Vienna has a lot of extremely valuable and important pieces (a large piece of the original cross and the spear that pierced Christ´s side, for example), but Munich has a ton of glitzy, shiny, dazzling jewelry. On the bling scale, I´d give it a 10.

Elese arrived safely, if a bit groggy. She´s been a real trooper the past few days. I gave myself three days to sit around and get over the jet lag; she hit the ground running. She reports that she turned the corner on Sunday evening and is starting to feel more adjusted. We spent the afternoon in the Alte Pinakothek, one of the world´s great museums. I was a bit overwhelmed by the sheer volume of heavy hitters--the quality of art is so high, it´s a bit hard to process. On my next visit I hope to visit the other 2 Pinakotheks, both of which are supposed to be great.

I need to keep reminding myself to not go to a town with too many preconceptions about it. I expected to love Vienna, and had very mixed feelings about it. It´s very expensive, not particularly friendly, and has a very strange way of organizing its art. From what we saw, the art collection in the area is massive. It´s spread through the city in dozens of museums, not necessarily by subject, artist, or era. I was really interested in seeing Klimt, but wasn´t up to the challenge of going to 3 different museums in different parts of town that all charge ten euros.

What I did see: The Kunsthistorisches Museum. It was awesome. In addition to having a central hall decorated by Klimt, it has over 200 wonderful paintings by a wide variety of artists. It´s worth going to Vienna just to see this museum. Some of my favorites:
Raffael´s Madonna in the Meadow (this was one of Elese´s favorites too)

















Caravaggio´s David and Goliath










Guido Cagnacci´s Death of Cleopatra

We both also loved the Leopold Museum, which I think is devoted to Austrian art of the last 150 years (we focused on the temporary exhibit, and just got a quick look at the permanent collection). Elese raised a good point about my dislike about "modern art"--I really need to define the term better. I generally just take issue with post-WWII art, not works prior to that period. We saw a large exhibit of pre-WWII modern art (well over 100 pieces) on the various representations of nudity and sexuality by Klimt, Egon Schiele, and Kokoschka, which was fascinating, as I´m sure you can imagine. The museum was well designed and the lighting was awesome (lighting is a major problem in European museums, the majority of which were designed before the invention of electric lights). I actually think the Leopold salvaged Vienna for me--I was leaning towards not liking it at all.

Traveling with someone is definitely a change, but it´s a good one. I enjoy having someone to share my experiences with. We´ve done a good job so far of taking breaks from each other and recognizing when we have differenty priorities (I visited the Vienna treasury while Elese went to one of the modern art museums, for example). We´re now in Hallstatt, which is a major change of pace from the big cities. More on that soon...

For a new perspective, here are some of Elese´s comments. She´ll be adding to future posts.

I'm jealous of Alicia's blog so I'm going to post short comments to her posts. Quick thoughts while sitting in the Umbrella Bar in Hallstatt (Salzkammergut):

- Where are all the tourists? There are no Americans anywhere. I can't decide if that's good or bad: It's pleasantly uncrowded but there aren't many options for meeting fun people & hearing their traveling adventures.

- I am unable to digest large quantities of religious art.

- Alicia is the most organized person I've ever traveled with.

- I love the Alps.

Elese

Prague-Berlin

My feelings about Prague changed wildly from one day to the next. I arrived late in the evening, having spent most of the train ride chatting with two Americans from Chicago and Atlanta. I had gone several days without meeting anyone that I liked, so it was a pleasure to be able to have a conversation again.

The first hostel I found was huge, dirty, and noisy, so I was up around 6 am. I checked into another place and headed to Bohemia Bagel--I think bagels may be the food I have missed most. I joined Kurt for breakfast, a private pilot from the Bay Area currently shuttling a client around Europe. Perhaps this is a career I should look into? The constant travel would be nice. Kurt and I spent the morning wandering, climbing to the top of the mini-Eiffel Tower (by far the best views of the city), exploring a hall of mirrors, visiting the Museum of Medieval Torture Instruments (interesting and creepy), and touring the Church of Our Lady of Victory, which is devoted to a wax doll of baby Jesus and his numerous outfits. It was truly odd and worth seeing.

I spent the afternoon walking and getting lost. I have a decent sense of direction and have been able to get my bearings in nearly every city I've been in, but Prague is really quite hard to navigate. I think I managed to cover most of the downtown area three or four times in the two days I was there. I spent several hours in the jewish museum, which is actually a series of synagogues and a graveyard. Prague is a beautiful place, reminding me of a setting for a fairy tale. Was the movie Labyrinth filmed in the area? It looks similar. It is extremely different from Budapest, and seems to have reacted to the fall of communism in a very different way. Whereas Budapest is all about commerce and industry and forward movement, Prague seems to be moving backwards to a much earlier time.

By day 2, the charm of the town was starting to feel a little fake. I spent the morning at the castle and toy museum (castle just so-so, Toy Museum excellent) and walked along the waterfront for an hour, then decided to get my show on the road. The train ride north to Berlin is the most spectacular so far--mile after mile of tiny villages with huge castles overlooking a river. I've grown to like riding the train--it's very relaxing.

I only had three hours in Berlin, but took a quick bus ride through various points of historical interest and climbed to the top of the dome of the Reichstag, from which you can see all of the east and west sides of the city. I'd been told of the importance of having a new guidebook to Berlin, and it definitely seems to be true--the amount of growth and construction visible is staggering. I imagine that it will be a very different place in a few years.