Vienna: Taste and Sight

If Vienna is anything, it is grand. This city shines imperialism. Vienna was the capital of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire for several hundred years and this regal past is displayed everywhere. The streets are broad. There are no meandering cobblestone lanes to get lost in. Any moment Maria Teresa herself could appear in a horse drawn carriage from the feel of things.

The palaces are grand, the gardens are grand, the music is grand and the museums are grand. To keep my head level and feet moving I had two main objectives for this trip to Vienna: the Impressionist exhibition at the Albertina Museum and the Saturday morning flea market.

H. had recommended the exhibition. He's working in Vienna currently and had seen an advertisement for it. He knows my taste well, because I am an Impressionism devotee. I've seen Van Gogh paintings in almost every major European city and I've spent hours with Monet. (In fact, an Impressionism painting was actually the reason for our first real date...but that's a story for another day.)

The exhibition was executed incredibly well. The paintings themselves were, as to be expected, marvelous. But the real icing on the cake was how well detailed and educational the information was. There were genuine easels and artist chairs and props from the time period set up in mock studios for the museum-goers to get a feel for how the artists worked. When there was an interesting fact about the painting, canvas or method then there was a large detailed print explaining what to look for. An example is a painting of a wind swept beach. Tiny grains of sand were actually embedded in the paint. There was a printed blow-up poster detailing the grains and giving an explanation of how the artist would have painted on location.

www.albertina.at/jart/prj3/albertina/main.jart?rel=en&reserve-mode=active&content-id=1202307119317&ausstellungen_id=1229505194745


Art is art, but the Viennese flea market is an art form to be savored with eyes, ears, tongue and fingers. The market is not just a few tables and stands, but city blocks and blocks of happiness. The first part of the market is for food items, most of the stands are actually small brick and mortar shops. You can whet your appetite with nearly any food item from any corner of the world: French cheeses, Swiss chocolates, Lebanese breads, Greek olives, Indian spices. I was quite literally a kid in a candy shop. I think I embarrassed my dear boyfriend more than once with my exuberant outcries of joy at some new found food item.




The second half of the flea market is for the normal folk to rent a table and set out whatever treasures or junk they would like to pawn off at an unreasonable price to locals and tourists alike. There were a few items that caught my eye. I'm a sucker for old books. I love the feel, the smell, the must. The costume jewelery always reminds me of playing dress up as a little girl. And the porcelain and china almost always draw me in with unusual color or shape or design. But all my money had gone into my tummy by the time I made it to the stands, so I browsed and made a mental note to begin to set aside a flea market fund for my next trip to Vienna, which I hope will be very soon.

www.wien.info/en