Breakfast at the same cafe across the road from our hotel. We then returned to our rooms to pack our bags and finish our morning ablutions.
We had decided to have another cultural visit, but rather taking to the transport system we walked into town. We followed the Mariahilstrasse, a pedestrianised shopping street, but the shops remained shut as today is the May Day national holiday.
Just before we arrived at the Kunst History Museum we popped into a true Viennese Coffee and pastry shop. In addition to a my cappuccino I indulged in an apple strudel with whipped cream. I felt a little bit greedy, but then self justified it on the grounds that I had been teetotal all week.
All around us stood magnificent buildings built by the Hapsburg monarchy. This included the Kunst museum filled with treasure that the empire had acquired over the centuries.
I first of all visited the treasures consisting of artworks made of gold, silver, ivory, crystal and every other expensive material.
I then visited the picture collection. The majority of the works come from the masters of the 14th to 17th centuries. I stopped to examine pictures by Reubens, Rembrandt, Bruegel, Vermeer and Van Dyck. However many of the images failed to inspire me with their religious and classical content.
After touring the rooms for 90 minutes we met up again and walked towards the Danube. On the way we stopped we saw what I presumed was the town hall. A march in support of Palestine made a lot of noise.
We tramped for approximately 45 minutes and then stopped at a very average restaurant where I chose spaghetti bolognaise and mixed salad. While this just about made the grade the coffee they served tasted bitter and horrible.
We walked on to the canal that runs parallel to the Danube. The warm weather made it very pleasant to stroll alongside the waterway. We stopped for a rest and examined the artworks around us. Jon dismissed them as trash and I tended to agree with him. We played a game where we tried to justify their conception. We had to use a lot of imagination to even come close to understanding what the artist might have meant.
We crossed the bridge to take the Ubahn back to our hotel. We failed to buy a ticket for this journey. I didn’t feel at all guilty.
Jon had became very nervous about being late for the flight and wanted to arrive at the airport more than 4 hours before our departure time. Our plane was due to leave at 20:20. We hung around the hotel for a little while but departed by Uber at 4:15 and arrived at the terminal at 5 pm. We passed through security and passport control very swiftly and sat down for a drink 3 hours before our flight time.